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12 December 2018 | Story Mothepane Lebopo

The door closed. My eyes opened.

My dreams were halted as I sat up. She was already outside my window, the midnight moonlight lit her skin and erasing my fingertips on her arms. I opened the window… cold truth blew in. It stung my heart. She was going.

“Seriously? After four months this is how you are going to leave?”

Silence.

She was trying to control her breathing, to keep it as flat as possible. She had a unique, annoying gift of being able to compose herself in such situations, especially when she knew it was needed.

She stared at me.

My heart was pounding against my chest. In anger. In desperation. It had settled on her, but clearly she wouldn’t let me get close to hers.

I felt the first tear roll down my cheek. I quickly wiped away the second one. She just stared…

She could have been looking at me, thinking of other things. With her you never knew. She turned.

“Wait, please wait. Did you ever love me?”

She stuck her tongue out and left.

And I knew that was it: we were over. Thinking back, I might have known for a while that it was coming. But still… being prepared for something doesn’t guarantee your heart won’t break when it actually happens.

I left the window open, slightly. My head was spinning and my heart was tearing.

I laid on what was supposed to be our bed and dug my head in a pillow in an attempt to block out reality. It was useless; warm liquid from my broken heart poured out through my eyes. All I could smell was her.

But what was I expecting? It could never work. We were two puzzle pieces from different sets. Two pieces that were never supposed to fit… We tried to force it, and it ended in pain.

She was such an odd person. She had this ‘forbidden love’ thing about her. Being hers was strange, I knew she wasn't mine but I still tumbled head over heels. Being with her was like cheating on a diet. Or texting when you’re supposed to study.

She had beautiful, wild eyes that had perhaps seen too much. She got high on other people’s vulnerability. When her arms locked around me, she wasn’t just holding me, she was searching for pain. Insecurity. She would pin me down and kiss my nose. When she felt my guard coming up, she would tickle me and my power would leave me and enter her. She always won.

Often we’d try to watch the stars. I could never concentrate, her beauty was fierce and demanded undivided attention. She couldn’t focus either. She looked at the stars, not for their beauty, but for adventure. She looked at them as a guide.

I felt her hot blood in her embrace, she had to move to keep cool. There was rarely a still moment. Always dancing. Always moving.

I guess that’s what attracted me to her. I made her my adventure. I wanted to see what she had seen. I told her I was happy where I was but in reality I wanted to go everywhere she went. Wherever the stars would take her.

My lips only met hers when she was drunk. Perhaps she didn’t want to remember showing a little bit of emotion, being a bit vulnerable in front of me. But even then she rarely shared her thoughts with me.

So her secrets are still with her, while she knows mine.

That wild girl, may I never hold her again. She said she didn’t like it. She wanted to feel liberated. And my arms didn’t offer her that.

The girl with a storm in her heart had started a fire in mine and left.

I look out the window, where she had been standing. I almost smiled. What was I thinking?  Thinking I could fix her? Whether I love her or hate her, it makes no difference because she’s not here. She’s not coming back.

I will never know what exactly she wanted with me. But I’ll grow wiser from this.

You can’t teach someone who’s power hungry to surrender. You can’t mould someone who despises being held. You can’t put out a wild fire. Don’t try to pick wild flowers, because their thorns will pierce your skin and then they will wither because of your blood. But their scent will linger forever.

Now I know. You can’t tame someone who is wild. You shouldn’t offer your heart to someone who has sold her soul to adventure.

Don’t try to love someone who can’t be still.

 

News Archive

Qwaqwa Campus launches transdisciplinary Afromontane Research Unit
2015-06-09

Dr Dipane Hlalele, Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Education on the Qwaqwa Campus; Dr Anofi Ashafa, Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences on the Qwaqwa Campus; Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research; Prof Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Dean in the Faculty of Education; Dr Geofrey Mukwada, Head of the Department of Geography; Dr Aliza le Roux, Head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology; Prof Prakash Naidoo, Campus Principal and Dr Elsa Crause, Academic Head on the Qwaqwa Campus.

The Qwaqwa Campus of the University of the Free State in the Eastern Free State boasts of one of the most beautiful and distinctive surroundings that will play a crucial role in fostering research in the under-researched area of the montane communities. This was revealed during the recent launch of the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU), the UFS flagship transdisciplinary research programme.

“This flagship programme has been in the making for about four years as our Qwaqwa Campus is set in a very interesting, unique, and mountainous place. The programme gained the momentum when the National Research Foundation (NRF) challenged each university to come up with their own single niche research area that would give them a unique research identity”, Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research, said during the launch.

”The Unit will develop the campus’s research capacity as we have already seen a huge increase in the research outputs by Qwaqwa staff. The campus already has seven scholars in the Vice-Chancellor's Prestige Scholars Programme (PSP), and there is notable excitement here. The Afromontane Research Unit will add to that research excitement as well”, she added.

Prof Witthuhn revealed that an application for the funding of the ARU had already been submitted to the NRF, and a positive response was awaited.

The PSP is an accelerated scholarship of junior UFS researchers in their first five years post-PhD. The prestige scholars participate in an intensive programme of support that includes international placement and intensive mentoring.

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