Dear Simi,
I still love you. Not the way I did back then — foolish, selfish, blind. I love the version of you that survived me. The one I lost the right to love.
The Night My Voice Broke
I still remember the lights — hot, golden, blinding. The sound of snapping fingers echoing like rain. The raw silence after I finished my last line.
And Jide’s empty seat.
He said he’d come.
He promised he wouldn’t miss it.
But his promises had started tasting like tap water — cheap and tasteless.
That night, my poem went viral. But the video that broke me wasn’t mine.
It was Tola’s — sitting on her bed, hand over her mouth, two pink lines on the test stick on the bedsheet.
The caption: “God, forgive me.”
What the hell did she need forgiveness for?
It wasn’t until two days later — when I couldn’t reach her, when Jide’s phone rang unanswered for the 13th time — that the truth broke me.
Jide was the father.
Tola was carrying his child.
And I was the one bleeding — without even being touched.
Dear Jide,
I don’t know how you slept beside me every night and still slept with her. You kissed my forehead and my best friend’s neck. I loved you too loudly. You whispered her name in silence.
The Girl Who Disappeared
I stopped showing up.
No more class. No more rehearsals. My spoken word collective called it “artistic burnout.”
The girls in the hostel whispered that I was too emotional, that I was “doing too much” — because that’s what they always say when women feel deeply.
But I didn’t care.
My grades slipped. My mirror cracked. My chest felt like concrete.
The worst part? It wasn’t the betrayal.
It was the silence.
Neither Jide nor Tola said a word. No calls. No knock on the door. Not even a “Can we talk?”
Their silence was a second betrayal. A confirmation. A slap without sound.
Dear Simi,
You are not dramatic. You are not weak. You are grieving a murder. A version of you died, and they didn’t come to the funeral.
A Year Later: The Letters Begin
I didn’t plan to write them.
One night during NYSC registration, I found a dusty brown notebook in my camp box. No lines. Just empty pages.
And on the first page, I wrote:
Dear Jide,
I thought of you when the sky turned purple. That used to be our color, remember? You said it made me look like dusk. But now dusk feels like a warning.
Every night, I wrote.
Pages bled.
Some letters were full of rage.
Others, full of longing.
Some I wanted to send. Others I wanted to burn.
But they all saved me. Piece by piece.
Dear Tola,
I shared my bread with you. My lotion. My dreams. And you took what mattered most. And worse — you didn’t say sorry. Not really. You just said “It happened.”
When He Came Back
I saw him outside SUB.
He looked thinner. Or maybe the guilt aged him.
“Simi,” he said, like my name was a question.
I walked past him.
But my legs betrayed me. I stopped. I turned.
He looked at me with eyes that used to undress me. But now they just undid me.
“I was lost,” he said.
I almost laughed. “Lost inside her?” I said, not raising my voice.
He looked away. “It wasn’t planned.”
“You mean the pregnancy, or the betrayal?”
He had no answer.
Just apologies that arrived a year too late — like flowers at the wrong grave.
Dear Simi,
Don’t go back. Not even if he cries. Not even if he kneels. Not even if he says he’s changed. Let him become a poem, not a partner.
Tola’s Apology Was Worse
She showed up one rainy afternoon, uninvited.
Same hoodie she wore when we watched Netflix and sobbed over heartbreak stories. Ironic.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she whispered, eyes red.
“Did you mean for it to happen the second time? Or the third?”
She looked away. “It wasn’t like that.”
“You know what hurts most?” I said. “You waited until I found out myself. You didn’t even respect me enough to tell me the truth.”
She started crying. But I didn’t reach for tissue.
I wasn’t her comfort anymore.
Dear Simi,
You are allowed to outgrow people who broke you. Even if they used to be your favorite humans. Especially then.
Finding My Voice Again
The day I returned to the stage, I wasn’t sure I could do it.
But my mentor, Aunt Moji, looked at me and said, “Baby girl, when your heart breaks, let your art bleed.”
So I did.
At the final convocation open mic, they called my name.
“Simi Akande — performing ‘The Letter I’ll Never Send.’”
I walked to the mic. Hands trembling.
I scanned the crowd.
He was there.
She was there.
But I didn’t read it for them.
The Final Letter
Dear Simi,
I love you. I love the girl who broke, and the woman who rose. I love the silences you turned into songs. The tears you turned into rhythm. The pain that birthed your voice.
And I forgive you.
For staying too long.
For loving too hard.
For shrinking to keep others comfortable.
I love you.
I read it. Slowly. Like peeling back bandages.
The room stood still. Then erupted in applause.
But I wasn’t looking at them.
I looked at me.
And I smiled.
Not because he clapped. Not because she cried.
But because I finally heard myself again.
Bold takeaway:
You don’t have to hate the people who broke you.
But you never owe them the version of you that survived it.
I tell the kind of love stories that stay with you — the messy, unfiltered kind that unravel slowly and cut deep. Inspired by real emotion, rich culture, and everything we never say out loud, my fiction lives at the intersection of vulnerability and power. If you’ve ever loved like your soul depended on it… welcome home.
