Secondary School Love Letter

I WAS riffling through my old things the other weekend: Secondary school note books, undergraduate files and somewhere in my notebook for PhiChemBi (pronounced FI-KEM-BA): Physics, Chemistry, Biology), I came across a true relic from the past: a love letter I'd written to the first girl I was supposed to have loved.

The letter in question is not an ordinary letter. It was the first letter I'd ever written to any girl. It was also written in a particular style. As secondary school students, we had our own way of doing things. Being newly introduced to the mysteries of science and agriculture, invariably felt that a love letter was a good means of showing off our skills. Every love letter was scrutinised by one's circle of peers. For the writing of this particular letter, I had no fewer than 10 advisers. The letter kept going back and forth with each person, adding his own line.

Our objective was simple: that the girl to whom is was addressed should fall head over heels in love. We had high hopes that the letter would do the trick. You probably also once wrote such a letter.

Here, this is the beginning of my first love letter: an emotional disconnection from reality, a question mark??? As follows:

At school, July 10, 1978

My dearest, sweetest, fondest, fantastic, extra-ordinary, paragon of beauty a.k.a Lizzy.

I hope this letter meets you in a fabulous state of metabolism, if so doxology. My principal aim of writing this letter to you is to gravitate your mind towards a matter of global and universal importance, which has been troubling my soul.

The matter is so important. Even as I am writing, my adrenalin is 100 per cent on the Richter scale, my temperature is rising, the windvane of my mind is pointing North, South and East at the same time; the mirror in my eyes has only your divine image. Indeed when I sleep, you are the one in my medulla oblongata, and I dream about you. I went out to sea in my dream, and I saw you: surrounded by H20 and you in your majesty rose from the abdomen of the sea like Yemoja, the avatar of beauty.

Oh, Lord be with us! We are thy servants!!!

As you can see, I am in a serious dilemma. And I want you to take my matter seriously. At this junction, what our Lord said on this matter is germane. He says we should ask, and we shall be given, we should seek and we will find, and that we should knock, and it will be opened unto us. I am this 10th day of the seventh month in the year of our Lord, one thousand, nine hundred and seven eight, asking, seeking and knocking at your door. My prayer is that thou should open so that thy servant can enter. I want to wake up in the morning and see only your face.

I want you to be the only sugar in my tea, the only fly in my ointment, the butter on my bread, the grey matter of my system, the oxygen in my head, the planet of my universe, the wall clock of my room. The conveyor belt of my soul. I pray that you realise the gargantuan nature of my predicament. If you refuse, my life will be like tea without sugar, like a snail without shell, a Xmas goat without a horn; in fact I'll become an orphan. What is life if I can't wake up in the morning and behold your face? You model of pulchritude, patiently created by God on a Sunday morning before he went on a deserved holiday.

Please Lizzy, let me be your Romeo. Make me the Adam to your Eve. Shakespeare said it all: if music be the food of love, play on. I want to emphasise, universally and responsibly, that you are love itself. You are the metaphor, oxymoron, thesis, antithesis, irony, gerund, conjunction and the adverb of love.

At this juncture, let me also say that geography of your body is a permanent allelluia. Not from your body, ammonia, urea and iodine- you are too beautiful for that, what I see in your body is milk and honey.

At this juncture, brevity is the soul of wit. A stitch in time saves nine. Procrastination is the thief of time. An opportunity once lost can never be regained. Make hay while the sun shines. All that glitters is not gold. The journey of a thousand years begins with a step. What God has put together let no man put asunder. To be a man is not an easy task even if God's time is the best. But time waits for no one. A man without love is like a fish out of water.

I know you are a sagacious girl. If you like the veracity of what I am saying, please fill the attached form and let me have it pronto. The mark at the bottom of this page is a kiss from me to you.

I remain, Your beloved, faithful, loyal, One and only admirer.