Love letter
Dear _____ I saw an image of you the other day. You were with my family, laughing, giving me the look that used to say you loved me. I had buried you three years ago. You were dead. Gone. I nailed that coffin shut. Yet here you were, on my screen. So familiar yet so far gone. Without my consent, my eyes began to leak. It hurt to see your face again. My heart doubled in size, opening to the love I had torn out of it, and you were back in there. Inside me, gripping my soul. The hatred I had burnt you out with vanished so fast, I forgot why I even felt that way in the first place. You kept me up that night and when I shut my eyes finally, you invaded my dreams with your awkward smile and perfect embrace. Waking, I was shocked. I missed you. More than I care to admit. My insides were in tangles; you had come back with a vengeance, you bastard. Like the worst kind of cramp. I buckled under the need to speak to you, so I reached out. You replied and it was sweet. We discussed our lives now and then all of a sudden I began to despise you again. For all you could talk about was how much money you earned. You just had to fluff your feathers. How am I supposed to respond, hmm? Do you want a standing ovation? When I said well done, you just ignored it. And this is where relationship reconciliation goes wrong. We’re all too busy trying to make that significant other miss what they had. But here I am, not missing your ambitions. You were broke when I fell in love with you. You had nothing. Yes, that annoyed me towards the end because you took advantage of my family’s fortune. But money never made me love you. Popularity never made me love you. I certainly didn’t love you because you were ‘cool’. So why do you feel the need to fluff around? You are the love of my life. I’d miss you no matter what situation you were in. ‘You could say I’ve changed a lot since I left’ That’s cute. But the fact you had to say that to me proves that you haven’t. This little converse made me reflect upon our time together. A relationship of two years, it was so intense, too real. We were too involved, and I threw myself into it. We had more damn love than Jack and Rose. I thought we’d spend our lives together. We just understood one another. And then our families collided with our paths. Your parents separated, crushing you. They left you, moneyless, with no care. I was the only one there to prop you up. And I did. You spent almost every single day at my home. My family was your family. At the end you were with me 24/7. You suffocated me with affection and yet you gave me nothing. No, I don’t mean material objects. I mean when I was down you didn’t bring me up. Sexually I was dissatisfied and yet I had to put in the work. Your eye strayed in the final weeks. You needed even more attention. My heart broke. And so I ended it. But you were still there at my home every day. We were just ‘friends’. And I still didn’t believe I’d ever lose you. Until the day you sent me a message. Telling me you were moving overseas because there was ‘nothing left for you here’. This made me mad. But you left; we said we’d always be friends. When you drove away for the last time I cried harder than I ever had. I was certain though that you would always be there for me emotionally. Certain you had left but weren’t really gone. Then you got to your new home. We spoke for maybe two weeks. But I found a rebound and you broke down. I apologise for that. The more you opposed it the more I just wanted you gone. But I was hurting. I was trying to get over you. I never genuinely wanted you out of my life. And one day, when I had messaged you, you never replied. So I sent another. No response. I broke down, harder than I ever have. And here I was. Alone. The boy who had been there with me through everything for the past two years, the only person I had spoken to about worries, the only one who knew the real me, the one who I actually let in, decided he would never speak to me again. I screamed into a pillow. I cried. I tore my hair out just to make myself feel something. You, always leaving me, always hurting me, tormented my sleep. Of course my rebound relationship was over within the month, that was fucking fated. I messaged you, telling you I loved you. Telling you I hated you. Nothing. It hurt. So much. My heart was wrenched out. A few months later I found out my sister had cancer. The same sister who housed you when your parents were being twits. I really needed you. And you didn’t say a thing. You read my message, but chose to ignore it. To ignore me. Did I hurt you that much? So much that you couldn’t be there? I had no one else. No one who knew my family enough to care. I spent a year just dealing with nightmares and crying fits. I stopped caring about people. I hardened. My faith in people dropped. If you couldn’t care, why would anyone else? And then you were gone forever. I received a message within the second year of your departure. We didn’t talk long. I was bitter. I fucking hated you, because it was the cure to loving you. Another year, another message. This time I didn’t even reply. And now, three years later we finally speak, and you can only fluff around. I can’t tell you much. But I do know that you will always be my first love. My first everything. And therefore, I can never in my life escape you. You haunt me. No matter what I try I cannot live without you showing up in my thoughts somewhere. And it’s not because I am still in love with you. I’m not. But I do still love you. I still care. The fact that two people can be so intertwined for so long and then simply break apart forever, really bothers me. How can someone who once meant so much, suddenly become nothing? So here I am. Stuck with this feeling of loss. I mourn you. I miss you.
