Tademise

From Goodbye with Love

Opening Notes

This edition is, on the surface, unapologetically a love story, but not only between two lovers. Beneath it lies a metaphor for the larger story we all live: the tension between who we were and who we’re becoming. It’s about the choices that pull us forward, the pauses that draw us back, and the amazing grace that holds everything together.

Part I

I was 25 going on 26 when I fell in love (again).

I remember how it felt. Even now, tears form at the corners of my eyes because my words feel useless trying to describe it. It felt like I had just woken up from a long sleep and a blurry dream.

That evening, I had been crying. I was wondering, not for the first time, how I let her go. Two weeks earlier, we had a skiff that unravelled into something messier than either of us intended. We said we needed to reevaluate things. That became “taking some time off.” And then, without ceremony, we were done.

It didn’t feel like a lot had happened. Life moved on. I even hit a few new career milestones, which were enough to at least distract my mind. But by habit, I still checked her WhatsApp status now and then. What I saw there told me everything I needed to know about how she was processing the breakup. She seemed like she was fine and had truly moved on. Or performing fine. Photos with friends. Snippets of music. A caption that wasn’t about me, but sounded like good riddance in my head.

Every time, there’d be this voice in my head screaming: You are a fool. You threw away something precious. I’d brush it off, or try to, and that went on for two weeks.

One Sunday evening after church, I was home. It was quiet, the kind of quiet that feels like you’re all alone in the world. And again, by habit, I checked her status. The first picture stopped me. I suddenly felt hot from the inside. Then my heart melted. It felt like I was looking at an angel sent to rescue me. I couldn’t peel my eyes from the screen. I just kept staring at her larger-than-life portrait. She wore a fitted checkered blazer over a black gown that flowed with pleats. Her shoes were flats. Her hair was done in cornrows, just the way I loved it. And her face, with no makeup, shone like a billion lamps.

I was enchanted. By the same girl I had just broken up with. I couldn’t scroll further. My tears flowed freely. That was when I realised what a fool I’d been. I had let go of a jewel. I cried myself to sleep that night, me, a proud gentleman, weeping without shame.

The next day, I woke up to a message from her. I jumped to open it. But it wasn’t what I hoped. It was a response to the message I had sent on the day we broke up, asking if she was okay. Two weeks later, she was just replying. It was long. A full list of her hurt and pain. I didn’t even know how or when I started crying again.

I dropped my pride and started begging her. I told her she was my love. That I had been blind and was a fool. That I hadn’t seen clearly until now. But she didn’t want to hear it. She ended that conversation by saying how heartbroken she was. That was when I started to believe I had truly lost something precious.

For the next two weeks, I reached out daily. Apologies of every kind. I beat myself up inside and out. Still, no response. It even felt like she had blocked me. I carried the blame like labour.

Truth be told, I wasn’t rolling any boulder up a hill, but I could empathise with Sisyphus from Greek mythology. The man was cursed by the gods to roll a boulder uphill, only to watch it roll back down just before reaching the top. That was me, every day. But I kept sending the messages.

---

One month after the breakup, I woke up to a single message:

“Olamilekan, would you please stop doing this? This can’t go on.”

When I read that message, a wave of emotion hit me. I started crying again. But then something struck me. She called me Olamilekan.

Tademise only ever used my full name when we were together. Then, when it was love. Otherwise, she just said Lekan or Leks, like everyone else. Even in that long message two weeks earlier, she had made sure to say Lekan.

But now, Olamilekan. She was the only other person apart from my mum who called me that. Soon, my mind started reeling with thoughts, and then the message, which was really a complaint, started to feel like something else. It started to feel like hope. So, I changed my strategy.

Tademise had always said she loved my voice. She preferred voice notes to texts. Especially mine. So, I started sending her voice notes daily. Just me, speaking my heart with affectations but in a very honest way.

Later that week, during one of the voice notes, something happened. I didn’t plan it, but near the end, I broke down in tears mid-sentence. She still hadn’t replied, and it just came out. I felt relieved, but her non-response was a heavy weight in my heart.

By Sunday evening, I was alone in my room when my mum knocked. She said I had a visitor in the living room, a lady she’s seen me with from church, who was also in the choir.

I wasn’t expecting anyone, but my heart suddenly began to beat faster. It was a mix of excitement and suspense. When I stepped into the living room that evening and saw who it was, I instinctively dropped to my knees and started crying.

There she was, Tademise, sitting and looking up at me. When she saw my reaction, she was momentarily confused, but her confident, plain face soon returned when my mum ran in from the kitchen, panicking.

“Olamilekan, what happened?”

I couldn’t even look at her. I just said in a broken voice, “Don’t worry, mummy.” I am fine. She stood for a moment and hesitated. When she saw that I didn’t turn to face her, she stepped away quietly.

I looked up at Tademise, and our eyes met. And the only words I could manage, before she burst into tears, were: “Tademise, I love you. I am really sorry”

---

That evening, when I watched Tademise weep on my knees, I expected nothing. Maybe forgiveness, maybe another chance. But what I got was something in between. She wiped her face and sat straighter. I stayed where I was, on my knees, unsure if I should rise. I didn’t want to break whatever fragile thing was holding us in that moment.

She looked at me for a while before she spoke. Her voice was calm. It wasn’t cold, nor did it carry the familiar softness I was used to. I really couldn’t read her. She said,

“Lekan, I’ve seen how much you regret it. I believe you. But we’re not going back... at least not like that. We can be friends, but that’s all we can be for now. And I need you to stop calling me pet names. No more voice notes that sound like we’re still in a relationship. Let’s just remain cordial. If this works for you, please let me know.” I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice.

When she left that evening, I finally sat on the floor beside the settee. I knew my mum had been eavesdropping on the conversation. When the door closed behind Tademise, my mum sauntered into the living room with a cup of coffee. She didn’t say a word. She just sat next to me and offered the cup. I couldn’t look at her face, nor did I accept the cup of coffee.

Soon, I was sobbing again. I only managed, “I really love her… I don’t know what to…” Then my voice trailed off as my mum wrapped me in her embrace. I wept on her shoulder for a while. When I came to, I sat straight and wanted to pick up the cup of coffee, but she said it would already be cold and returned to the kitchen to make a fresh one.

---

Part II

So we started again, but not from where we left off. This was new ground. The next eight weeks were quiet. It wasn’t really empty. It was just... slow.

Casual check-ins. Cordial greetings. Sometimes at choir practice, sometimes over WhatsApp. Nothing deep. Nothing that crossed the line she had drawn. I respected it. I held back, even when it hurt. But behind the silence, I kept writing little notes, poems and reflections that I’d never sent.

It was just a way to cope with the loss and reminisce about the times we shared. That was all I had left, and I needed somewhere to pour the ache and the hope. The confusion. The questions.

So, I wrote poems.

Four of them.

I wrote them like letters I couldn’t send, so I wouldn’t break the rules of the friendship. Each one helped me breathe a little better.

The first came on a quiet evening. The air was still. I remember sitting by my window, not thinking too hard, just writing. It felt like speaking to someone who might still be listening, even if they wouldn’t respond.

Story Letters from Another Era

My dear Tademise,
I will tell you stories of old
Stories of love from a fading era,
Echoes of voices once vibrant,
Now softened, like faded ink on old letters.

I will tell you stories of truth,
Of forgiving grace, unwavering and deep,
Where love was born in simpler days,
Woven through moments that linger still,
An endless thread across time.

I will tell you stories of sunlight,
Of warm and cozy winters by the fire,
Where love needed no grand gestures,
Only the quiet, steady truth of being together,
As close as breath, as near as heartbeat.

I will tell you stories of silence,
Of joyful secrets left untold,
Of hands clasped tight in shared stillness,
And hearts bound by promises unspoken,
Love sealed not by words, but by trust.

I will tell you stories of today,
Where old meets new in fleeting glances,
And warmth is found in the ordinary,
In the strength of quiet moments shared,
A love that endures without need for show.

I will tell you stories of tomorrow,
Of fragments, voices, and echoes,
Of laughter and tears, once etched
In the quiet corners of time,
Carried forward like a gentle refrain.

And though that era slips further each day,
Like sunlight retreating at dusk,
The stories remain, laughter in distant rooms,
Tears shed under the cover of night,
A love that holds fast, as time wears on,
Like embers that refuse to die.

My dear Tademise,
I carry these memories with me
Whispers from a world half-remembered,
A silent vow to a love once known,
A promise to keep the laughter alive,
To honor the tears that fell,
And to cherish the love that still lingers.

Tademise, will you listen to my stories?
Will you carry them with you,
To the new worlds yet unseen,
So love may live beyond our time?

I made a decision the next day. I was going to break her rule and send her the poems. I didn’t know what else to do with them. Because if I didn’t send them, they could as well have never existed.

After I sent the first poem, I wasn’t really expecting anything. I had written it for myself more than for her. That was the lie I told myself. But sharing it made something shift in me. I felt lighter, not because Tademise responded, but because I had finally said what had been sitting quietly on my chest.

A week later, I wrote the second.

This one came late at night, after a long walk. I remember how the wind brushed against my skin like her fingers once did, soft and steady. I had no music playing this time, it was just silence. That was when the words began to form.

It was a love letter to a space that didn’t hurt, to the place where I could still find her, even if it was only in sleep.

Find Me in Your Dreams

Find me in your dreams, my beautiful Tademise,
In those sleepy, serene plains where time slows,
Where my love is the lone star on a dark night,
Guiding you across fields of quiet shadows.

Find me in your dreams, Tademise, 
Where the soft whisper of the evening breeze,
Carries my voice to you, a murmur on the wind,
A promise to hold you, though we’re worlds apart.

In those moonlit lands, where boundaries blur,
I’ll be waiting, my hands outstretched,
As real as breath, as close as heartbeat,
For in dreams, distance is no barrier to love.

So close your eyes and step into that space,
Where night holds the beauty of all we’ve wished,
Find me there, where our souls meet unseen,
For in the world of dreams, you are forever mine.

When I sent it, I didn’t expect a reply, and none came. But the next time I saw Tademise at church, she didn’t avoid the gaze when our eyes met. But that was all. There was no affection, not even her usual smile. We didn’t talk that day. But her nod, when I waved was a small signal that I hadn’t been writing into a void.

Eight weeks passed like that, her silence holding more than absence. It held attention. Maybe even memory.

---

I didn’t stop writing after the second poem. In truth, each new day made the silence more bearable but also more mysterious. I didn’t know if she was moving on or just watching from a distance. Tademise wasn’t the kind of person to show her hand too early. I knew that.

But even without a reply, something in me refused to stop hoping.

I remembered how we met. I never really told anyone. Not because it was a secret, but it felt like something that would lose its softness if spoken aloud. It was at a wedding none of us wanted to attend. She sat at the same table.

As the ceremony wore on, she leaned over and said, “This DJ feels like he is trying too hard to be remembered.” I responded with my best smile, “Yeah, right,” I said. “Why is he shouting his name after every song?” She smiled and looked away.

We didn’t exchange numbers that day. I was being careful anyway, not to seem like I was desperate or already trying to woo her on day one.

Two weeks later, I found her in the same bookstore I always go to whenever I get tired of my house. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it wasn’t. But there she was sitting in the poetry section. I actually almost walked past her. When I recognised her, I gently tapped the table, and she looked up, as if she’d been expecting me. She didn’t smile. She just said, “Oh, you.”

Well, that’s enough about how we met.

The third poem was two weeks after the second. It came from a deeper place. Not the pain of missing her, but the weight of everything she had become to me. It wasn’t a cry or a wish this time. It was a tribute. It was me, finally saying who she was to me, and not just who she had been.

Tademise, My Eternal Muse

I
Tademise,
Beauty like an orchard of morning daisies,
You who captured my heart
With the simple grace of your gaze,
I stared, and in that moment,
The world shifted beneath my feet,
In the curve of your gentle smile.
I felt loved like no other.

II
Tademise,
Your wisdom runs deeper than ancient wells,
Surpassing sages with their guarded scrolls.
You crossed my path like a quiet blessing,
And with a soft and beautiful voice,
You touched my heart and drew me close,
And in the serenity of your songs,
A thousand untold stories began.

III
My Tademise,
Each time I see you, my heart beats anew.
Where were you in the lost years
When my heart searched for love
But found only shadows?
Your absence then, like the wind,
Whispered of something yet to come,
And now, you are here,
Filling my life with light.

IV
Tademise mi,
Heaven smiled the day our paths crossed,
And the endless search ended in that moment.
No longer do I wait in vain,
For in you, hope has found its perfect rest.
You are the answer to the prayers
I whispered to the night.

V
Tademise,
I would write you a thousand poems,
Each line a melody to your name.
I would sing of you under the stars,
And let the night cradle my song,
While the moon, like a sentinel, listens close;
I will tell it of the beauty you breathe,
Of the universe I see in your eyes.
And when the heavens grow quiet,
Even the stars will know your name.

VI
Tademise mi,
I will bring you home to my mother,
For she must see the woman who holds my soul.
Under the shades of the ancient trees,
We will sit, and she will know
By the way you look at me,
That you are the one her heart prayed for,
The one I searched for all these years.

VII
Tademise,
In your laughter, I find my peace,
In your gaze, I see the future unwritten.
You are my haven, my quiet song.
Together, we will weave our days,
Hand in hand, writing a story
That will endure and conquer the tyranny of time.

VIII
Tademise mi,
If all the world fades tomorrow,
Still, I have known the fullness of life,
For to love you is to live.
In every moment, I would choose you
Over and over, with every beat of my heart.
And if the heavens crumble and time itself falters,
Still, I will walk no other path
Than the one that led me to you.
For even if the stars lose their light,
In you, my love, I have found my forever muse.

After I sent it, I didn’t wait for a reply. Not because I’d given up, but because some things don’t need answers right away. That poem wasn’t a question. It was the truth. Still, something in me began to wonder: if she read these things I wrote, what was she thinking? Did she ever reread them late at night, the way I reread her last message?

A week later, I started working on the fourth poem, where my longing finally turned into a question. One that had been burning in my heart.

---

Part III

A month after I sent the third poem, I could feel the tension in me building, not the kind that explodes, but the kind that fills your lungs and never leaves. There was still no reply from her. Not a word about the poems. Nothing more than the usual “Hi” or “See you next Sunday.”

I started wondering if she had read them at all. Or if maybe she read them the way people read obituaries, once, with pity, and then forgotten. But I also knew Tademise. She didn’t pretend. If she didn’t want anything to do with those poems, she would’ve said so. That meant something was still alive. Somewhere.

I didn’t want to guess anymore. So I wrote one more. The fourth poem wasn’t as polished as the others. It wasn’t full of pretty metaphors or careful praise. It was a question. One to which I really longed to receive a response, but knew only Tademise could write it.

Mail Me a Letter

I
Mail me a letter written by hand,
On oily paper, new and fresh like roses.
Mail me a letter written by hand,
Filled with praise for the love we once shared.
Mail me a letter written by your hand,
A testament to our undying love,
Now, perhaps, only a dead weight
On the broken heart you carry alone.

II
Mail me a letter written by hand,
Write it by dusk, and send it by first light.
Mail me a letter, written by hand,
Write it by the open fire where I first professed love.
Mail me a letter, inked in your perfume,
And seal it with the bond we once swore
Would never be broken,
Back when we believed in forever.

III
I remember the time before the fall,
When my voice was music to your ears,
And your thoughts were a soothing balm
That eased the ache of my bones at night.
When did we lose the spark that burned so bright?
How did we come to this place,
Where you no longer belong to me,
And time, like a thief, took all we had?

IV
Mail me a letter written by hand,
And tell me of hope, forgiveness, and redemption.
Mail me a letter, written by your hand,
Tademise, pray tell, will our love ever bloom again?

I didn’t send any other message after that. No voice note. No follow-up. I wanted her to meet that poem in her own time, if she ever would. And then, on the third day of the ninth week, she responded. Not with a reply in chat. It wasn’t even a call as I had hoped. Tademise had responded with a poem of her own.

It came unannounced, quietly dropped into our chat like the return of something thought lost. There was no title, just her words. But I knew exactly what it was. It was her answer.

---

On the morning of the 263rd day since our final breakup, I woke up to her message. I sat on the edge of my bed, phone in hand, rereading it again and again like it was the first line of a prophecy. She said the words had found her. Not the other way around. In her own words, she wrote:

“Hi Olamilekan,

I woke up this morning with a poem reciting itself in the quiet corners of my heart, like a fleeting dream refusing to fade. It whispered to me, line by line, until I found myself listening intently to the third stanza, something like:

‘The night has ended, and it’s dawn again.’

It felt both foreign and familiar, as though it had been waiting for me, tucked away in the folds of sleep. A reminder, perhaps, that even the longest nights give way to light. That every ending holds the promise of a new beginning.

As I lay on my bed, I waited, listening to the silence, until the words began to form. They came not in perfect synchrony, but in jagged symmetry, stumbling and yet certain. One after the other, they found their way to me, and soon, six lines rose like the first light of dawn for the first stanza, awakening me to a new day.

This poem is dedicated to my Olamilekan. I want to write this poem together. There will be four stanzas. This is the first, and I await your response with the second. I will respond with a third. And we will write the fourth together. Here’s to new beginnings and brighter days ahead.”

A New Day

I

The shadows lingered long, my beloved,
The nights whispered doubts in my ears.
We walked through storms, through trials untold,
Yet here we stand at the break of dawn.
Olamilekan, can you hear the song?
A new day calls, will you walk this road with me?
Tademise

I didn’t reply immediately. I sat with it first. Let the words breathe. The air felt different that morning. As though every quiet hour that had passed between us had been waiting for this moment. When I finally began to write, my hands trembled slightly. It wasn’t from fear; it was reverence. She had offered me something real. And I needed to meet her there. So I wrote the second stanza for us.

I didn’t rush to send it. Her words echoed inside me all morning. I carried them while I bathed, while I dressed, while I stood barefoot in the living room staring out the window with my phone in my hand. There was something sacred about the way she had written Tademise at the bottom of the stanza. It felt like reaching. Not a hand that pulls but one that waits to be held.

So when I finally sent mine, I kept it simple and honest. I too, signed my name at the end of the stanza the way she had, Olamilekan: like two people standing across from each other, hearts open, palms up.

II

Though the storms raged in dark whispers,
And the moon sought to withdraw her light,
Still, my arms held fast, unbroken, unafraid.
I've waited patiently for dawn, my love,
Dreaming of grassy plains where the sun burns bright,
Of stretchy fields where our love will take flight.
Olamilekan

I sent just the poem. It was just six lines, but it felt like a bridge built across all the silence we had walked through. And then I waited again, this time not with fear, but a kind of soft expectancy. Tademise would respond, as she said. And when she did, it would be her turn to shape the third stanza.

Her response came just before dusk, as the light dipped gold over the roofs outside my window. I had no expectations about when she would reply, but something about the timing felt perfect. It was unforced. Like a prayer answered not early, not late, but right on time.

The message appeared with no extra words. No greeting. Just the poem. And at the bottom she signed: Tademise, as before. But this time, there was no uncertainty in her tone. Her lines were sure-footed and willing. There was a softness in her asking, and a strength in her surrender.

III

The night is over, and it's dawn again.
A new day is here, and I am beholden to your love.
So carry me, Olamilekan, please carry me,
Back to those grassy plains of your dreams,
To the fields where the sun burns at sunrise,
To the hearth where we first professed our love.
Tademise

I sat in silence after reading it, not because I didn’t know what to say, but because the words had said everything I had waited weeks and now months to hear. She had reached back, and together we had carved a part out of the place, a path forward. There was only one stanza left now. She had said we would write it together.

---

Part IV

We had agreed to meet that Friday evening. It was nothing grand. No pressure. Just time and space to be in the same place again, without scripts, without the screen between us. The old bar at the botanical garden was still there, just as we left it. Same lanterns, same wooden chairs, same lemon-scented breeze threading through the hedges.

We sat at our usual spot. Tademise ordered a malt. I asked for water. Neither of us drank much.

The poems came up slowly.

At first, we just smiled, remembering each stanza. She asked me why I chose the line about stretchy fields, and I said I didn’t know; it just felt like the kind of love that didn’t break when pulled. She laughed, gently. Then she took a deep breath.

She reached across the table and opened her notebook. “Let’s write the final stanza,” she said. And we did it together. Word by word. Line by line. We didn’t talk too much. Sometimes she’d say half a line, and I’d finish it. Sometimes I’d whisper a rhythm and she’d catch it instantly.

When we wrote the final line, she looked down, closed the notebook, and whispered, “It’s done.” And then she wept. She didn’t hide her face. She didn’t look away. She just leaned into me, her body soft against mine, her tears warm in the curve of my neck.

I held her without speaking. After a while, I caught the waiter’s eye and gave a small nod. He understood. The quiet notes of “Lmly” by An Endless Ocean began to play, slow and sacred, like the breath between heartbeats.

We stayed like that: two people who had lost and found each other, hand in hand, not needing to say anything else. I wept too. It wasn’t for sorrow or shame. It was for joy and the peace that settles in your chest when you know, without needing to ask again, that there is no storm you won’t weather together.

And the final stanza? It said everything.

IV

Hand in hand, we will greet this new dawn,
Tow in tow, we'll dance to love's new songs.
For the trials have passed, yes, the storms have stilled,
And our love remains pure, steadfast, and true.
A beacon that lights the grassy horizon of our love,
The burning sun illuminating every path we'll walk.
Tademise & Olamilekan

We left the garden just as the sky began to dim, soft lavender folding into blue. Tademise walked close beside me, her hand warm in mine, like nothing had ever been broken, even though everything had been.

I didn’t ask what came next. I didn’t need to. We had written it already. In every stanza, in every silence between the words, we had built something stronger than a reunion. We had built a knowing. A promise that didn’t need to be spoken out loud anymore. Not because we were afraid, but because we finally trusted the quiet.

And maybe that’s what real love becomes, not fire, not noise, not spectacle. But a quiet return, a gentle choosing, and a shared morning after the longest night. Often, love is that space between what was and what can be.

---

Closing Notes

I used to believe goodbyes were never final. I just didn’t understand what that meant. I didn’t know you could walk away from someone, a season, a place or a calling, and still sense it trailing you, quietly calling you back.

Some endings are dramatic; others are disguised as deliberate decisions. They sound like maturity, even progress. They come wrapped in words like growth and next steps. Yet every departure, no matter how thoughtful, leaves a mark: a subtle absence that reminds you of what once was.

You tell yourself you’re moving forward. And maybe you are. But life has a way of circling back, not to what you lost, but to what you left too soon. It could be a person, person, passion, or path. And if grace finds you softer, not harder, you might meet it again, not as it was, but as it was always meant to be.

The end.