The aphabets began to blur and to swallow one another. That was when I became aware that I was actually crying. I folded the letter which had become moistened with my tears as soon as the prison wardens approached. The tears welled up my eyelids and freely trailed down my cheeks and dampened my face. I made no restraints to hold them back. Yes, I allowed them to pour. Maybe to flood the cell if that would bring her back. I learnt she had been writing me since last five years but nothing got to me. I only got to know of this from the new guard-Okafor our townsman.
***
Now silence has drawn its myriads of wretched marks across our hearts. And we have become like two lovers at crossroads, each taking a different path and not looking back to see each other's misty eyes.
That road must be so lonely for you as much as living has become a death trap for me. I do not have to jump from Brooklyn bridge for living like this is death itself.
***
Behind these bolted bars, I missed your audible smile daily. Just a day more to becoming a free man, news of your untended demise hit my eardrums and blinkered my eyes to tears.

How can I live henceforth? This rhetoric and many more plagued my mind and I did not even take notice of the whizzing mosquitoes in my ear which had been my only companions within these bars.
***
I went breaking the law for you my love and the long claws of law caught up with me. You were diagnosed with cardiovascular... I remember not the technical term the doctor used. And said without equivocation that a deposit of five million naira be made before treatment commenced.
We barely ate enough for a day. Getting five million naira was apparently a herculean task, if not an impossible one. 

But I would not cross fingers and watch your breath vacate you. That bank robbery and the Robinhood business of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor I showcased in front of the bank that trended the headlines were orchestrated and geared towards saving your life. Obviously, it finally robbed you of the very life more than the sickness did. I doubt if your organs accepted any treatment after your heart shuddered hearing of my arrest. 
![images(27).jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmd6Ni3s2iePJcfvZq7dt5bbMv7DVQsMoYE2ER7TVnBPZx/images(27).jpg)[source](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSBe5dqsQjCsGlZ5sbmsVZVltKY1ZKsE2mz1ktC2ZPLtb0leuon)
You held on for years and gave up the ghost just in the nick of time.
***
Now, I am haunted by my past and the attendant death of my love.
And all these are interwoven into a **labyrinth of misery.**

# @harrywill