We are three friends scattered across the globe, each navigating life as gay Zimbabweans.
I am currently reading the best book I have read in a long time. Heavy by Kiese Makeba (although he doesn’t use his middle name) Laymon. This book got me out of the house, and sitting on a bench in an old, slowly dying park where homeless lovers, colored grandmothers with their grandchildren and black friends wanting to get high come. This book has pulled me from an abyss I knew I was but was denying really hard.
On page 144, Laymon writes:
“Do you feel home?” she asked me. “Honestly. Next to me?”
“I feel so home,” I told her. “Do you?”
“I never want to feel anything else other than what I feel right now for the rest of my life, Kiese.”
These four lines wrecked me and freed me all at once. For a long time, I wondered why saying I love you to you felt different. It did not hold the same weight when I said it to my close friends, or my brother or even my father. And I knew that when I looked at you, as we made love, as my eyes rolled back and I whispered I love you, you knew exactly what I meant and felt the same way. You were home, we were home in that moment and that was love. I think now and find it funny how we had to cross an ocean and leave everything we knew to finally feel at home, to finally be seen and to finally feel safe enough to be home.
*
Do you remember my 23rd Birthday? I had not thought about it for a long a time until I heard Love is the Power by Teddy Pendergrass play in Tinashe’s car.
It’s been a long time coming
You brought my love back to life with your lovely smile baby
I searched the world over, there is no other I’d rather love than now
Since you came and brought me love
You’ve erased all the hurt and the pain I’ve known
And I’m still in need of you
Bring it back to life baby, your love is the power baby
*
It was midafternoon, you came to campus, parked outside my res and called me. Are you ready? You asked. Yes, I am, I replied. I was nervous, I did not know what to expect from a weekend with my Ex, especially an Ex I was desperately missing and feeling lost without. But truth be told, that was the best birthday weekend of my life. I remember our stop in Providence, my encounter with the Bloody Marry, which I do not understand why anyone would add alcohol to tomatoes, especially vodka. I remember you laughing at me, because you already knew I would not like it. I remember you looking at me, and telling me, that I looked handsome and believing you. I remember you taking a picture of me and feeling like no one would ever look at me like that. Make me feel at home, make me feel welcome, safe, invited and most of all at peace. The sun was out, I wore my favorite Levi’s, the ones that hugged my thighs so well and made my ass look like I was squatting and not skipping leg day, and my blue sweater that Tinashe gifted me because he could not fit it. I remember arriving in Boston and being mesmerized all over again by Boston.
You had bought our favorite South African wine, from that nondescript liquor store in the middle of nowhere Connecticut—that wine was bomb. We drank that wine, sat next to each other on the couch in our AirBnB and I told you about my father. He had recently been admitted into hospital, no one had told me, including him, I was worried that he would not make it. I was worried for the worst. “what if he doesn’t get to see me graduate?” I asked you. “Don’t worry.” You assured me. I immediately started crying, I had not been able to cry in front of anyone since I found out about my dad, I wailed and shook, you held me. You let me cry. I was home.
We went to a beautiful restaurant by the Pier. It was a pinchy February night, we ordered a Lobster Roll. It was my first time having a Lobster Roll, you watched my anticipation. You were excited for this new experience. You always were. We had no money, but it was always about the experience. The experience mattered. I believed you. That roll was divine, soft, crunchy and filling. You smiled as you saw my enjoyment. I was home.
We went back to our room, and opened our second bottle of wine. We played music and had the best sex we had had in a long time. I expected nothing of you, and you expected nothing of me. “I love you,” I said. “I love you too.”
We were home.
*
We have found new homes now; this I am sure of. But I hope you know, that though you may never come back, you will always have a home in me. And there is nothing I am never ready to hear, scold, support and cheer for. Love is truly the power.
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