THE NOTE SHE LEFT ON THE WORKTOP
Poem by Refilwe J Mokgatlenyane
It was one summer night and the sky was raining its cold mist
My body was feeling light and lifeless like the watch that was wrapped around my wrist
The house too was scared,signaling there’s nobody home
Sarah is my wife, usually I find her home everyday when I come back from work
Every night she’d call me outside and we’d look at the stars shining bright on top of our house
And we’d talk about how we’re gonna name our children Virgo and Libra because they’re our favorite horoscopes
Today when I came, I called Sarah’s name and the only answer I got back was an echo
I expected to smell the nice dinner right from the garage door, calling me to my kitchen for Sarah is the best cook
She really inherited the art of cooking from the hands of her late mother
But that night, when I walked from the garage, I smelt no food from the kitchen, just a damp, odorless air from the chilly weather
The lights were on, perhaps my beautiful Sarah was not well
I knew I had to deal with it because my beautiful Sarah was five months away from bringing two beautiful identical humans to this earth
The house was lonely when I got inside, I thought I’d find my beautiful Sarah sleeping in our comfy king size bed
My beautiful Sarah must be feeling unwell and maybe I needed to rush her to the doctor
But our room was empty, a cold feeling of panic dousing over my body
The house too was quiet, even the room we were beginning to prepare for our two little humans had nothing, but a pink wall decorated with yellow and white butterflies, a white double cot and some new toys we got from the store
Sarah and I were to come and call the company to finish doing the décor
I shouted out her name again and again the only answer I got was an echo
I walked around the house, our little library was also empty, except the last novel we read together last night, “Red queen “
But my heart palpitates,and I tried acting calm, Sarah was out to see her friend
But no, Sarah would never go out and not tell me about it, so I got on my phone and called Vicky
But Sarah was not at Vicky’s, not even at Mary’s, those were the only two friends she’d go to
A thousand more pulses counted within a second, tears slowly started attacking my eyes
I called Sarah’s phone and it rang
But I could hear her ringtone singing from the kitchen, I rushed there
My eyes opened more wider when I came closer to her phone
There was a letter, ‘’Dear Marvin ‘’
It was Sarah’s hand that penned it down
Dear Marvin
Do you remember that very first day we met?
When twilight was spreading her beautiful shades of red and the bus stop in California street was where I sat
I was reading a novel by Sarah Deaden and on the other side of my lap laid my cat
You came and shared a seat with me, I never saw you sit there at first
But when you greeted me with a line from the novel, I was reading
That’s when I rose my eyes to look at you
And the first smile you wore over that face when our eyes met set tingles down my spine
That’s when I knew I needed nobody else but you
The first beautiful thing I knew about you was that you read books, and I did too
It was even more beautiful when I got to know we read the same books
You were the only happiness that came into my life in the shape of a handsome man and from the very day we tied the knot
I knew even death would not do us apart
Because with my beautiful heart, I was ready to love you beyond the borders
I wanted to get every single meaning of every single word
But the more I read, was the more my forehead dripped buckets full of sweat
My heartbeat like it’d pierce through my chest and fall to the floor
But after swallowing a thousand more times
My Adam’s apple bobbing up and down my throat like it’d come out my mouth
I dosed my eyes for a short moment, hoping this doesn’t end as I’m expecting
And opened them again to continue reading
Refilwe Mokgatlenyane is a young writer, an aspiring entrepreneur and an LLB student at the University of Botswana. Her writing journey has started way back since she was 9 years old, she started off as a short story writer and changed to novels and later on started specialising more on poetry writing.
