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Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are, Up above the sky so high, Like a diamond in the sky…

I bet you sang it rather than read it like just a normal write-up. Yeah, not your fault, though. That’s how the brain works. It decides quickly for us, long before we realize we have already agreed. Memory, familiarity, and repetition move faster than choice. Probably that’s why they say, “When you go with the heart, go with the brain as well.” As though we would listen to the brain. As though the heart ever waits. Even when the brain warns us, we rarely obey. Love blinds us all (TWW, 1973).

Don’t go searching for the writer or the year. Neither exists. They were assumed. And somehow, the assumption still feels correct. They say assumption is the lowest form of knowledge, but love itself often begins that way, without evidence, without certainty, without permission.

I write randomly. I always have. I write when I don’t know what to say, or perhaps when words fail me completely. For a long time, that was enough. Until I was altered by an external force. Newton’s First Law of Motion states that a body remains in its state of rest or motion unless acted upon by an external force. I never knew love could be such a strong force.

Unplanned, I was. Yet love still decided I was the perfect candidate. I still remember the whisper that day: “Solo, she is beautiful. Go talk to her.”

Like a fool, I smiled, walked up to her, and said the exact words, “You’re beautiful with a smile.”

My foolish brain did not stop there. It went ahead to ask her name. She smiled and said, KC.

KC? Like Kelechukwu or Kasarachi? The Igbo boy in me sheepishly asked.

She smiled again and said, Kenechukwu.

That’s an awkward name for a female, I murmured to myself. But even then, my brain still smiled and said what a beautiful name. “Everything is beautiful when you look at it with love” (Alli, 2025).

This time, Alli was right, because for that moment, the name Kenechukwu sounded beautiful on a female, even though it is usually associated with the male gender.

That was just the beginning. Yes, calling her name beautiful was only the beginning.

Then came the sleepless nights, all thanks to MTN’s free midnight calls. It was never enough. Even when I went to work every morning with swollen eyes, I still returned to the same routine every night. Sleep became optional. Hearing her voice was not.

And when she finally became mine, oh, mine, first it was her name on my contact list that I changed to mine. Then I couldn’t go a day without seeing her. Soon, I was imagining getting married in my father’s house. Truly, love is a beautiful thing.

For a while, every morning felt like waking inside a song. Every word, every touch, every silence between us carried weight. I felt lighter, braver, and somehow taller. Even my mistakes seemed smaller when she was there.

But love, I learned, can also fade quietly. Not with arguments. Not with betrayal. Sometimes it simply grows still, like a pond in winter. We stop noticing the small things. We stop asking questions. We stop making an effort because we assume love will always be there.

And slowly, without warning or a storm, it began to leave. I didn’t see it at first. She smiled less at my jokes. She lingered on her phone when I spoke. I told myself it was temporary, that she was tired, busy, and distracted. I didn’t pay enough attention. I assumed love, like a habit, would endure on its own.

One evening, she whispered, almost shyly, “I think we’re changing.” And I realized she was right. Love doesn’t always die loudly. Sometimes it just drifts away when we forget to tend it. And when it goes, it leaves a kind of silence heavier than anger or loss.

I tried to hold on, of course. But the harder I reached, the more it slipped. Until finally, she was gone, not in a fight, not in heartbreak, but in a quiet, natural way. We had loved fully, and yet, without attention, even the strongest love can fade.

“But it’s always the strongest that fall the hardest,” Kate McCarthy wrote in Fighting Redemption.

To this day, that line still finds me when I am not looking for it. It reminds me of how deeply I fell, how completely. How willingly. I wish my mind had been built for redemption, but I fell so far that redemption felt like something meant for other people, something I could admire but not reach.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder…

This time, I bet you didn’t sing it because your mind became aware. Just like the present me.

That was how it always began. Simple. Familiar. Almost careless. Writing used to come to me that way—light, playful, and effortless. I never had to ask the words to stay. They always did.

I told myself I would write about it. That writing would help me survive this version of myself. But each time I tried, I stopped after a paragraph or two. Not because I had nothing to say, but because something had changed in me. Quietly. Unannounced. Love had passed through and left without noise, without drama, and yet it altered me. The one thing I once found easy and interesting, writing, no longer flowed. I didn’t notice the change at first. I only felt it in the pauses. In the way sentences broke apart. In words, they approached feelings and then withdrew, as if they no longer recognized me.

What came out were fragments. Thoughts that wandered. Lines that hovered close to meaning but never settled. Maybe that is what remains after love leaves, not emptiness, but sound without rhythm. Noise without direction.

Today again, a friend said, “Why don’t you try writing again? This time, call it Another Love. Write about another love.”

Another love? I paused. Another love in what sense? Another love because I hope for one? Another love because I have found one? Or another love because believing in it feels easier than admitting I am still afraid?

If I give it that title, whose love am I naming, and in what context? The one that broke me quietly? The one I am expected to grow into? The one I had, or the one people keep promising will come?

When I was done writing, though it barely felt finished, I said softly, Here is the piece with no title. You can call it whatever you want. Names make things permanent, and I am still learning what deserves to stay.

Beautiful or ugly. Sorrowful or joyful. One day, we will all have to write a story about love. This is only a fragment of mine. For a moment, it was lovely. I felt lighter. I cared deeply. I was tender. I lost sleep. I gave parts of myself without counting the cost.

I experienced love.

Maybe one day I will write about another love, just as my friend suggested. But for today, I will write these random thoughts and trust that even without a title, the reader will find one.