Poetic Licence to Kill a Romance - by Eyitoluwase Soyinka

I think I always hated, no, hated isn’t right.Maybe, despised, how critics made us see Isabella only through Heathcliff’s actions and words. Through his lens. Or is lens too neat a word? I'm not sure, but poetic licence is a thing, so we’re going ahead.Yes. Where are we?We judge Isabella for loving one man whilst knowing she loved another more.How sad.How very sad.Shouldn’t love come with free will?You should read the book.However old-fashioned it may seem, a lack of prior knowledge while reading certain insights might make you feel your rather advanced intelligence has been reduced to spittle.Oh well...that's thatThis is rather far from what I intended to say.I wanted to write about a date gone wrong... flipping through the pages of my journal" Actually, no, that wasn’t the intention either "I wanted to write a shame piece. And the most obvious choice was love, which felt sensible, until I took paper to pen. Do not correct the interchange. As I’ve previously stated poetic licence is a cute thing.After much confusion (because shame pieces do that), I realised my shame wasn’t loving too much, but deciding not to love at all.So join me as I carefully redact (that word isn't it old military parlance?) my experience with one man I did not fall in love with.So yes. I’m introducing you to Tosin.Hii guysMeet Tosin, the proper Yoruba man. The kind with the six-two–or maybe I'm projecting–build and very nice facial features that make you want to thank his parents personally.And to allay all fears, because whether we admit it or not, nobody wants a broke man...yes, meet Tosin, the man with a car (To haters everywhere: I didn’t say he does kàbú-kàbú. He owns it.)Somewhere along the way I may have forgotten to mention his skinning skin, but I really think we should move on from that.Nice guy Tosin invited me to his house and 'brace yourselves' made no move to spread my thighs or kiss me. Which is strange, believe me. I’ve experienced “ Stranger Things ” can we agree season five is such a let-down Apparently will doesn’t like gir-oops. I deviate.So Tosin, who cooks. And I mean throws down in the kitchen Gordon Ramsay style. I found this skill particularly fascinating, especially as a verified hearty eater who struggles with fasting but must.I like food.Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.Tosin the chef, made meals for me whenever I said I was hungry and didn’t once attempt to slip in a love potion.Tosin, who lives on the Island but drives to my school every week just to see my face. Truly, I questioned whether my beauty was that enchanting. It led to me flashing alluring smiles and sexy eyes at a bus conductor in hopeful experimentation.Bottom line: he collected the fare and asked if something was wrong with my eyes.So no. It wasn’t my beauty.Have I deviated again?How sad. This was supposed to be a shame piece. And yet here I am, explaining myself to anyone willing to listen.Then Tosin, knowing exactly the kind of person I am, very slyly says and I reiterate this because my brain refused to file it under 'casual conversation' “ he wondered if I wanted someone to help me get ready when I was running late.” Someone to call first when something went wrong.Someone who wouldn’t ask too many questions, just show up with food when I couldn't be bothered to cook(I liked that one more than I should admit.)Someone who would stand beside me when I went home and say the right things, even when I didn’t feel like explaining myself.Someone who would bring Lucozade and remind me to take my drugs when malaria decided to revisit.I remember thinking: this is how people end up agreeing to things.HE BREATHES IN.“I wondered, Eyitoluwase, if you could imagine being in love with me the way I’m in love with you. And given you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, whether you’d give me the chance to try to be the best thing that ever happened to you.”And my brain...sighed.Literally.It posed me the question which I've come to accept as a statement “WHY CAN'T YOU LIKE TOSIN ?" Tosin who checks in and isn’t toxic. Who doesn’t spell ‘I’m’ as ‘am’ or text ‘am gud tnk u’, a low bar, I know, but in this country, it’s practically a love language.”This boy who understands my silence and luxuriates in my chatter.Who treats me like a woman and still babies me.Once licking ice cream from my side lips, stuttering my senses into overdrive like a generator without fuel.' Did he just pull a book-boyfriend move?' I asked myselfHehehe.The truth, the part I avoid dressing up , is that Tosin did everything right, and I still felt nothing I could name without sounding ungrateful. And that terrified me. Because if goodness doesn’t move me, what does that make me? Not broken. Not traumatised. Just…unresponsive. And that felt worse.P.S. While writing this, a stranger’s human child pushed away his mother’s breast just to stare at me.Should I reconsider beauty as the cause of such love?Close friends tried to explain my lack of shivering skin and butterflies as my spirit recognising an innate evil I’m yet to see.Does Tosin do juju?I think not.My shame was not that I didn’t love Tosin. My shame was that despite ticking all my boxes my heart refused to budge.Back to Isabella and Heathcliff, honestly, I’ve been tasked to do a thesis on them, which is why I can’t function through any insight without mentioning them.Would you remind me to tell you about Ademola next? I really should write about all the men I’ve encountered. I’ll be stinkingly rich.

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