TITLE: HOW TO FALL IN LOVE AGAIN
EDITORS: JIDE BADMUS, WISDOM NEMI OTIKOR, OLUWATOBI EZEKIEL POROYE, FUNMILAYO OBASA, TEMILOLUWA OKANMIYO OLUYEMI
GENRE: FICTION (SHORT STORIES)
NO. OF PAGES: 84
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2024
ISBN: -
PUBLISHER: INKSPIRED
REVIEWER: MICHAEL CHUKWUKA
The collection purifies the soul and evokes a range of emotional missiles recollected in the tranquillity of chaos: love won and lost, expectations, nostalgia, promises, bitterness, resistance, haunting memories, hope, and freedom. It is an assemblage of timeless truths cloaked in metaphors—an avalanche of heart-wrenching stings that whip yet soothe. Like venom, it continually stays with you just like (un)loving. If there is anything to be taken away from this collection, it is that (un)loving dwells in the indwelling of anything with air in its lungs.
Talking about the juxtaposition of love, we see a clear demonstration of it in utmost reality in the lines below:
sometimes pleasure may bring death even happiness may cause tears & you too may fall prey, yet again, of sweet words doomed, perhaps saved, by lust or love. yet, to love is to live.
It is peaceful to conclude that embers do not ignite themselves into fireworks without triggers– everything has a causative. Whatever we are choosing we should endeavour not to be the pawn in a cheese. When a fire is ignited it either brings beauty or ruins, likewise, love can do both. Experience has never failed to be the best teacher. Each poem in this collection adds fuel to the burning fire. It is either a story of where love won or where it surrendered. Of people who want others to learn from their stories. In the story of love just like in birth, we do not look at how many fucks bring about birth, we only look at successful love stories and say ‘wow’ because “to love is to live”. Like the process of beading everything has a beginning and an end. Where patience is the ultimate hinge of love, it snaps as well. There is music in love and hate, and both linger.
It is a classroom of the carnages of love; how love can rupture and still enrapture. Every hate is a product of where love once lived. According to Temioluwa Okaminyo Oluyemi, “I’ve cried a river/I am building a bridge/I will get over you.” The poem displays that things cannot be broken if they are not once together. A person may intend to keep the memories and not let go, but it is important to let all the embers of that which caused pain to die by separating oneself with a “bridge” and choosing to walk into freedom. Okaminyo echoes the fact that hurt is like a hangover which doesn’t leave a person entirely free and resounds a commitment not to be imprisoned by a situation that is already dead, affirming that we should not wallow in the river that was meant to drown us.
Sulola Imram appends his voice to this when painting the breakup of two lovers: “That ye two shall go separate ways / that breakfast be served on a platter of dumbfoundedness.” After this closure, he writes “behold! that ye seek another love story in the morning / & at noon”, ascribing that we should not grovel when a breakup occurs but face it with the healing power of loving again, believing there is something and someone greater ahead. Above all, finding love is seasonless and not dictated by timeframe.
He says further “That ye dab your eyes with the wool / of hope, of getting another best to breed a new love story / that ye comfort yourself”. This is to encourage people not to take a breakup as an end to life but instead find solace in trying again. He admonishes it is hard, because how can we easily oust experience that has become part of everything we do, looking at us like a cut-throat knife? So even when we let go, “we still search for ways to say I love you”, why not? Memory is a room and we are all its visitors. So, even if you burn the bridge leading to it, can you forget the smell of “melted butter?” or your favourite “song?”
Hurt can be seen, smelt, felt, and heard, and so is love. It is, according to Ibrahim Olalekan, “the memories I wear like/a second skin in times when / you’re everywhere/ but here.” Hurt is absence; it is people not having the privilege to do together what they used to. It is becoming strangers again and going back to default. It is leaving a space in a room once occupied by two.
Osho Tunde captures this:
inside my room, you will find a hall inside my head:
There are circles of faces in the hall,
there are smiles on the faces,
there’s Nathaniel Bassey’s voice rising with us,
there’s us holding hands between song and fireworks,
speaking with the pillar of the house of Jesse
Absence they often say makes the heart fonder. This excerpt above justifies the dying craving of someone who feels psychologically empty and incomplete because there is a void left unoccupied in his/her life. The feeling of a thought the persona wants to replace but cannot because he/she is shackled to a beautiful past that used to be reality. The feeling of reincarnating and resurrecting dead past, no wonder the allusion to “the house of Jesse”. This creates what Pamilerin Jacob refers to as the “Saga that is my life”. There is that sense of insufficiency that absence creates. A haunting feeling that something vital is missing, yet the memory of what once was lingers like a ghost in the present. Cherished moments are often replayed by the mind like old films recast on the wall of consciousness in the absence of a loved one. Life does offer a bittersweet reminder of love through our yearnings enhanced by absence. This is usually to show that love leaves an indelible mark wherever it ever resides, like an altar.
Asleep, my heart vibrates
in my chest
like a cell phone.
You are the one
it ponders.
It creates a yearning that nothing can replace. Like homesickness, we are haunted and enveloped by a situation that is far beyond our reach. The hyperbole of a vibrating heart seems to examine how the core of the lover is exhumed from him when it thinks of the lover. It is a taste not like food. One we are hungry to satisfy but cannot. It is a plague of the heart incurable that would neither allow bliss in death nor comfort in living. And so, the heart continues to yearn, holding onto the memories like precious gems, until the day when absence is no more, and love reigns supreme once again.
Why should we love again? What must we know when we love? Adaora, in her introspective poem “Holy Sacrament”, explores the anxieties of love, forgiveness, and self-discovery. She agrees that to love is to be vulnerable and selfless, alluding to Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross. She emphasizes the importance of understanding that love requires vulnerability and a willingness to put others before oneself. It’s a journey of self-discovery and growth, where forgiveness plays a crucial role in nurturing and sustaining relationships. Adaora’s poem reminds us that love is not without its challenges, but it is through these challenges that we learn and grow, ultimately augmenting our lives and the lives of those around us. Hear her:
Surrender.
Die from falling—in love
Take yourself to the stake
a sacrifice of emotions
Captured here are the risks people expose themselves to when they say "I love you," knowing they are placing their safety at stake, knowing that it could be met with joy or with pain, with reciprocation or with indifference. “Die from falling—in love”, a metaphorical death: the shedding of one’s former self and the submission to powerful emotions that can feel overwhelming. It is not the natural death. The poem draws a parallel to historical acts of martyrdom, suggesting that true love requires a similar level of devotion and willingness to endure pain. It is a warning that loving is a committed process we must embrace the risk and potential of troubles of love to behold the transformative power of love. It pushes further to answer the question, what do we do when those we give our all take us for granted? She has this to say: "forgive yourself... for agreeing to be undone by certain hands you once fed with the deliciousness of your being." Unreciprocated love may come with self-blame, but we are bid to release the healing power of self-compassion not to mourn too much over bygones but instead to be easy with ourselves because love is a "dying pill" which keeps us alive.
Amidst this chaos of loving and losing, we must be strong for ourselves “Like grass grows after drought/ The earth finds a way to conceive/ Binding all the cracks from her romance with the sun/ She makes a newborn”. We must free and restore our souls from the tangled prison and “let bygone be bygone” by arranging “each piece of heartbreak into the peace of mind”. We must learn not to look back since looking back is “what breaks the heart”. Despite all these hurts and letting go, we must never stop the practice of loving, for if we stop loving, we start dying.
In all this, we ask, what is existence without love? Then we realise that love comes to those who hope and never stop trying, although they have been broken a million times. Love comes with a price. It comes with surrendering our vulnerability. With the risk of giving someone else an axe not knowing whether or not he or she would take our heads or rather defend our heads with it. Adeleke Babatunde captures it in this fashion: “To fall in love again is to put your own neck in a noose / Kick the stool from under your own leg and leave yourself hanging”. This pinpoints that to love is to sacrifice all and leave yourself trusting your life with another. In the final lines of the poem, he concludes scarily, “To fall in love again is to look Stockholm syndrome in the / Eyes and say “not today, you will not have me.” So, loving becomes a healing mechanism for those who choose it and another excuse to live. Loving is choosing to be alive. Passionately, Seun Akinola in her exploration of the practice of loving again:
Fall like one from an aircraft, Geared with a parachute. Trust that the fall Is for the good of your heart. Leave indeed the sad past And embrace love afresh.
Talks up neglecting the past, going into the present with new vigour and the advantage loving brings– life “afresh”. We must never look back at past experiences to guide us hence we will lose “faith” and become fearful. We must dare by being adventurous yet remain cautious. We can therefore ask, how can I trust the fall? But since it is “for the good of your heart,” do you have an objection? It is daunting to fall in love and very much worth all the effort associated with it. We must be ready to face love like children when learning to walk. Oshafi Razak says, “We must break free from shackles of the past,” so why should we be afraid to fall in love again? When to fall in love again is:
To breathe again,
To laugh again
& to be alive.
Love gives hope extraordinarily and changes the perception of the world around us. It takes away mundane things and allows our focus to be on concrete things of value. It is survival and it is to see the beauty of life and choose it over anything again and again. It is all the cycle of fulfilment, breathe, laugh and live. This exonerates love as the possessor of life and giver of happiness. Pamilerin Jacob affirms;
The sonic of your laugh ripples through my blood like a covenant, stirring, weaving within me persistence, survival, joy —
The undefilable kind of strength mustered in the beautiful promises that love brings to the beloved is resonated in the above lines. Through aquatic imagery, the persona creates an effect with the word “ripple”, we can see the process, the carefulness, instead of this ripple occurring on water, it occurs on the blood. This shows the indelible congeniality that exists between the subjects. It stirs survival and brings joy because it makes the world visible in another light, giving the beloved something to live for and easing the burden of self-condemnation.
Love is ethereal; it is infinite. According to Eliot Cardinaux, it is “what right now cannot provide” because it is eternal. So, to be lucky with love, we must keep gambling, keep trying, and never give up attempting. No wonder Jide Badmus says, “Throw a die / Throw a six twice.” Why shouldn’t we, when to love again is to have life? Abiodun Ekundayo corroborates this when he says, “To love is to live…but what is life if not to love and be loved again, and again?” Love is the faith of the hopeful and the strength of the hopeless. Oluwatobi Ezekiel paints love aptly; he asserts:
love dies love rises again, like day in the duvet of night & unfolding by morning; like the savior's head drooping on the cross & elevating in ascension.
This concludes it all. The cyclical nature of love is put in open view, dying and rising and the comparison today shows that it is ever unending. It demonstrates that love is mobile and a continuous thing to be tried again and again. Love is a saviour. It can only hibernate but won’t die. Love can always survive adversity and come back ever stronger. It bends but doesn’t break. It stands firm in adversity and triumphs. It emphasizes these lines:
As oceans, swirling now and calm later As the waves, gentle and ruthless As the depths go on and on Vast and uncaged, untamed but at its own will
Love progresses ever through tides in all climates. It doesn’t lose it sparkles and doesn’t quench. While it struggles, it stays grounded and keeps moving. It survives all the trials and tribulations across all difficulties. Loving again is going through hell, knowing that heaven or hell, if we do not give up, two can live happily here or hereafter.
The collection perfectly explains how to fall in love again; the vulnerability, the pace love should take, and the level of patience. Falling in love again might just be you learning to love yourself more, prioritising that happiness, fulfilling that dream and forgiving yourself. Above all, the collection demonstrates the practicality of opening yourself to the ultimate possibilities of love even when it is scary. If you think not loving is beautiful, have you ever been truly loved or truly loved? The whole piece answers the question that to be loved and find love again is unexplainable.
Chukwuka Michael (PenTsunami) is a poet and writer from the Igbo-speaking region of Nigeria. He holds a B. A in English from the University of Benin, where he developed a passion for poetry. His works explore the known in unknown ways and tell the truth of human existence. He believes truth is most resident in the most absurd Art and that the best way to communicate the ineffable experiences and emotions that make up the human experience is through poetry.
