Akanke mi

I have started this letter more times than I can count, because no opening felt worthy of you. So let me just be honest: I am sorry. Not the quick, easy kind of sorry — the kind that has kept me awake, replaying the moment I let you down.

You deserved my patience and I gave you my pride. You deserved to be heard and I was busy being right. I see that now, clearly, and it aches in a place I did not know I had.

What I will never apologise for is loving you. That has been the truest thing about me. Everything else I am willing to unlearn, soften, and rebuild — for you, with you.

If you let me, I will spend my days proving that the man who hurt you and the man who adores you can become one and the same: gentler, slower to anger, quicker to listen.