Ya zhdu tebya. I've been waiting for you.
Yeah, Vykhodtseva Karolinska Mariah, I am still waiting.
Waiting for someone who could turn my life around. Perevernut' moyu zhizn'. Someone who could make me feel the way I used to feel, when the world was still innocent. Kak ranshe.
But she never comes, Mariah.
I am searching the world. Ya ishchu, but there is no one I care to talk about. Nikogo. And all the lovers in this world? Vse lyubovniki mira? They don't amount to much. Nothing. Nichego.
Because what I really want, Karolinska, what my heart has been starving for, is just one true love. Odnа nastoyashchaya lyubov'. One. And that one is you.
And I would give anything. Ya by otdal vsyo. And everything. I dazhe bolshe.
Pomnish? Do you remember?
Moscow. 2016. Moroz. Cold.
You found us, lost. Me and my friend Ali. Two dark boys in a white winter, drowning in Moscow. We were looking for Vlastelin Kolets, Lord of the Rings, like two fools chasing a fantasy in a real, freezing city.
And then you appeared.
You. On three bicycles? No, like three winds. So free. Svobodnaya. So beautiful. Krasivaya. Your laugh cut through the Moscow ice like Taaka Vodka cuts through the throat, burning, honest, unforgettable.
You did not just show us the way. You became the way.
Later that night, ta noch'... the steamed lamb neck. Parnaya baranina. Steam rising between us like a prayer. You, me, Ali, the vodka bottle half-empty, our hearts half-full. In that small room, Moscow stopped being cold. Moscow became home.
Ty stala moim domom. You became my home.
Well, Mariah, I could find someone to hold me tonight. It would be easy. But it wouldn't be enough. Etogo budet malo. Because no hands feel like destiny. Only yours did.
And now I am in my afternoon life, Karolinska. Not the morning of youth anymore. The afternoon where a man knows what he wants. And I know.
Just this one time, tol'ko odin raz, I want to find what I have been dreaming of since that winter.
Some people pass through your life like snow; they melt.
Some people remain like a scar on your heart, beautiful, permanent.
You are the scar I want to keep, Nnyabo.
So if you are reading this on a weekend, let it not end on a weekend. Let it be the story you carry Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the whole week. Vsyu nedelyu.
Mukwano, I am still at that same table in Moscow in my heart. The Takka Vodka from Siberia is still there. The steamed lamb neck is still steaming. Two chairs. One is yours.
Ya tebya pomnyu. Ya tebya lyublyu. Ya tebya zhdu.
I remember you. I love you. I wait for you.
Genuinely, respectfully, truly yours,
IBM. MMJ
Tvoy Mukwano iz Afriki
