Twenty Short Letters: No. 6

Her intentions were never to burden him.  She never meant to complicate his life. She only wanted to add to all the good she saw in him. She would have broken every rule to be his happiness, his muse. She wanted to be the one he stayed awake with all night fogging back seat windows. The one he came to for good advice and bad ideas. The one he would sit with in bar rooms and waiting rooms and airports. But she came up short.

Misbelief reached out for her hand. She listened intently, felt intently, examined her motivation and the consequences of her inquisition, then she blindly followed anyway. Inventorying all the ways she would love him, breadcrumbing for seasons, strung out on hope, lies. Surviving on the last contraction of his throat as he kissed her, swallowing his indecision day after day, wishing he'd just choose. 

And when he chose, well, she'd never known such carnage. The loss of something that was never hers. The darkness in the middle of the day. The deep, seething pain in the palms of her hands. The sound of the pieces of her heart clink-clinking on the floor behind her as she pulled away, still madly in love and completely destroyed. She wanted to set his soul on fire but instead, she only burnt herself down.

Twenty Short Letters No. 9 She was

From "Twenty Short Letters" # 9

She was the girl who caught you off guard wasn't she? Yes, unexpected. The kind of girl you fall in love with and never even know. It was unexplainable, why she loved you. She admired things about you no one had ever admired before. She loved you in ways you had never been loved before. She sparked a flame that had never burned before. But that doesn’t matter because you aren’t going to know her anyway.

She hid away for so long because she knew she wasn’t what you wanted. Yet when you knocked, she answered anyway. She welcomed you in, knowing you were only passing by, a shadow in her night.  She should have toppled your box of half-truths and plentiful maybes and slammed the door in your face but she didn’t. Instead, she held you for as long as you wanted to stay. And when you left, you quietly pulled the door closed behind you and she quietly dug her nails into the other side, clutching to all of nothing you left for her. 

Now she surrenders to the certainty that she will long for you each of her days because convincing herself that she won't is far too exhausting. She will wait forever for the impossible. She knows it's stupid and it breaks her but it's perhaps the noblest thing she'll ever do. She stands on the edge of her days and watches and waits for her feelings for you to wash in like waves, some days gently and other days like a storm, and each time she chooses you over the ocean.   In the spaces between the seconds, she dreams of you.  When the memories grip her in the twenty-fifth hour, on the eighth day, in the fifth season, she closes her eyes still searching for you, unfinished business, unanswered questions, a ghost.

Even now, after all this time, she'll tell you that you were her greatest hello, something she trusted would be forever, but she won't accept that you are the saddest goodbye she never got to say. She just waits for you to knock with an indecisive fist and tell her. Tell her what she meant, tell her about your dreams,  tell her that she's enough or tell her just how all together forgettable she is.

Twenty Short Letters No. 4 Understanding

From "Twenty Short Letters" No. 4

I understood. 

I understood that deep down in the depth of your yesterdays you were deathly afraid.  Afraid of the judgement, of the loneliness, of enduring the uncomfortable space until it became comfortable again. Afraid of the loss, of having to explain things, to her, to everyone. Ego and reputation keep some cowering forever, throwing up walls in fear of a looming attack. It's what is within the fortress that matters most but seldom is a priority. 

I understood what it was to have a void inside you and choosing it every time over the warpath to real happiness. Should you suffer a little until the end of your days or commit to the hazards of the hard road? Damned by complacency or maybe even laziness. 

I understood your fear. The fear that if you choose yourself, even once, your pedestal would be toppled into a rut and their love would topple with it. The image others have of you is grand, their arms wrapped around you, a genuine love- and that's real. The right ones will stay you know? They will love you still. They will love you for your truth, your bravery, your willingness to sacrifice and start over, this time, for yourself. 

I understood the risk. The risk that it would be a mistake. That it would be temporary and you could never go back. The uncertainty, the gamble.  But you see the signs,  even if you won't admit you see them. You can ignore them forever, that's up to you but they won't just go away. You'll see them in a car passing by, on a piece of junk mail, in a cup of tea or when you catch your own reflection, even years from now, you'll see them.

I understood the weight. The immeasurable weight of something so heavy on your heart and mind every day, the madness of trying to stop it. You'll never stop it. I'll never stop it. Eventually, we will throw the world to the wind and give into it, admitting to ourselves what we've really known all along.  Or we will carry on as we always have, with the void inside, sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming a lifetime dismantled almosts. 

I understood that I convinced myself of all these lies. I convinced myself that you chose a higher path because it was easier than the truth. And the truth was, you didn't want it. The truth was, I paced the floors on sleepless nights, but you did not. I was devoured by my hopes, but you were not. Your presence was everything, and mine was not. What a one-sided, washable masterpiece are these thoughts that consume me. Surely the things that eat me alive would be full by now, but they are not. 

I understood, the very first time I saw you, that you could destroy me~ and I knew I'd let you.