letters-never-sent

personal writing blog

[letters-never-sent]

I love her. I’m not in love with her. I think I’ve known that for a while; I just didn’t realize that it was because I’m actually still in love with you.

I used to agonize over whether or not you knew. I thought you might; now I know for sure that you did. It’s…relieving, in a way. Knowing that you knew and were so kind the whole time. Knowing that you knew and yet didn’t step away even when it would have been so easy to.

I still can’t quite believe I told you. I’m kind of glad I did. I wonder if you can tell it’s still true.

It’s been a day and I miss you already.

[letters-never-sent]

There’s something special about it.

They’re truly gifted.

我要回到我的地方。

I have never been more sure of anything in my life.

[letters-never-sent]

I’m so tired, man. How do I justify this, how do I say that is okay. How will I live if what I love will never amount to anything, if what I do is wanting for meaning. I want I want I want, but I’m not allowed to because I’m scared and I’m tired and my heart is sore from caring. Just—just tell me it’s alright, okay? Just say that it matters to you if it matters to me even if the pool of the universe spares my pebble no ripple. Just hold my bruised soul in the palm of your hands and collect rainwater from the weeping sky to wash away the blood from its wounds.

[letters-never-sent]

It’s been a year and a half since I wrote this. I haven’t written in a while; I’m out of practice. But that’s okay—I know what I want. I know what I love and what I want to do, and maybe no one else will care but it will amount to something to me and it will mean something to me and that is more important than anything.

To my past self, thank you for writing this. Thank you for reminding me. I’m listening now.

[letters-never-sent]

Enough is okay, I tell myself. It is not too much, it is not excess, it is exactly what it says it is—enough. Choosing to be enough and do enough is not what my mind lies to me that it is. It is not me choosing to be gluttonous and lavish. It is not me choosing to be lazy. It is not an excuse and it is not weakness. What it is, though, is the three-letter difference that encapsulates a universe—the difference between live, and thrive.

If I tell myself this enough times, if I read the definition of enough enough times in the dictionary, maybe I will start to believe it.

[letters-never-sent]

what am i doing? i make lists months in advance and i plan out every little detail. don’t spend, don’t waste, don’t eat too much. they say that planning is something people like me should have trouble with but they don’t understand, it’s not about attention or interest or passion, it’s about control. it’s about being able to know what the future holds and being able to prepare for it. it’s about being able to decide what and when and where and how much. it’s about making this little part of my life my own in months where everything else was torn out of my hands. it’s about control but it’s obsessive, i don’t think about anything else even though i try and try and try to curb it. it’s about saying i cook what i want but then not telling them i spread it as thin as possible--don’t get faint, don’t pass out, anything else goes. it’s about definition and wanting to see how low the numbers can get by the next time i step into the office. it’s about creating a hunger of my own volition and knowing how and when i’ll let myself indulge it. it’s about having something to save for later, for just in case, for a bit of cushion when something else doesn’t go to plan. what am i doing? i’m taking control and maybe i’m taking it a little too far but i need it, i need certainty. i need something of my own that, if i balance it just right, can be something i’m proud of instead of something else to sweep under the bed.

[letters-never-sent]

i prayed to a god i knew and asked him why i was still alive; because i was told he was supposed to be kind and merciful and i wanted to die

i prayed to a god i knew and said if he wouldn’t kill me then could he a least make it all stop; because he could manifest miracles and i was a lost child

and perhaps it was unfair of me to ask that god for help, to beg him back into the matters of a world he’d created and left

or perhaps it wasn’t my place to demand salvation because after all, this god did not give a burden to a soul that could not bear it

but this god did not answer me; i was a child and i saw nothing of the kindness and mercy and miracle that everyone speaks of; so i said fuck it

i will make gods of my own

[letters-never-sent]

They say you remember the details

Every single one

The sound of his voice and the sound of the screams and the way you felt

They say you remember the details

Everything that he said and the date and time burned into your brain like a brand

And the guilt

They say you remember the details

And everyone thinks that it’s the details of what happened and the endless wait for it to end

And they say you remember the details

But what’s clearest in my head is the deep calm blue of the curtains

[letters-never-sent]

It was weird, walking by the next morning. I could smell pancakes and coffee and fresh fruit, and I could hear a dozen different conversations from the queue forming outside the door. It was hot, and it was sunny, and it was business as usual. Just another Saturday; just another brunch with friends. Nothing except the bags under my eyes to remember the man who had lain there dying just eight hours before, just ten feet down the road.

[letters-never-sent]

Hey Boston. With all that’s been going around lately about police brutality I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I keep asking myself if I did the right thing. Obsessing and obsessing and obsessing over my decision, my snap-judgment that I can’t even really take credit for because I couldn’t think. But it saved your life, right? I heard you scream that you were dying and I knew that I shouldn’t call the cops on a Black person because god forbid what they might do to you but you were dying. I didn’t know what else to do. And I saw the ambulance come and take you away on a stretcher and I know you were still alive then but I just—I keep thinking about it. Wondering what I could’ve done differently. They say the police hurt Black people more than anyone else; I know that. They say medical professionals dismiss Black people more than anyone else; I know that too. So I can’t stop wondering if what I did was wrong, calling 911. I can’t stop feeling guilty, even though you were dying and I was the one who got the ambulance to you before you slipped away from this world. But I guess that’s part of PTSD, isn’t it? The guilt. Knawing, burning guilt. The obsession.

I want to stop thinking about you. I have questions that I need answers to but I know that those answers I’ll never get because it’s none of my business, knowing if you survived beyond that night and knowing if you got help and knowing if you’re okay now. It’s not my right to get that kind of closure. I just want to stop thinking about you. I want to stop remembering. I want to forget. I want to stop agonizing about those twenty minutes when I heard you dying and your friend try to stop it, and I want to stop beating myself up over what I did because it happened to save your life that time but I called the cops on a Black man.

It happened to save your life that time. (And the PTSD whispers, and what if it hadn’t?)

I know this movement isn’t about me. I know what you went through isnt about me, either. You were the one who tried to kill yourself. I was just there to witness.

[bluedusksandpinkdawns]

I’m running out of new ways to say I miss you.

I’m treading carefully, these riverbanks are damp and muddy, and I’m perpetually having to watch every step -

I know better than to fall again.

It’s not a constant ache, it’s just every time I get drunk and poetry flows from my fingertips and it’s all about you,

Stumbling through busy streets in massive cities, tears flowing and I swear I’d be okay if you were here.

All the poems I didn’t post; I don’t want you to have to read them, to deal with that onslaught of feelings.

It’s just; your smile didn’t get any less beautiful when you left - Was I only supposed to love you when it was convenient for you?

Damn, every girl reminds me of you, and all the music I used to listen to –

There’s a large space where you used to be; It doesn’t hurt, exactly –

I lived like this for years, but when you came I changed, and something differed in the way I was arranged –

I adjusted myself for you to fit, and now I don’t know how to fill it.

Remember us, okay? Remember there was a time when you were so in love with the notion of me

That you wasted weeks away wishing for it, and remember there will always be a version of me

Who smiled uncontrollably the first time you held my hand, Who you caught staring at you and smiled sheepishly - 

Remember the day we were perfect, At least in my mind,

Before everything came crashing down And we were lost in the wreckage.

We never danced in the rain, and we never watched fireworks, or went for walks by the river –

And I never pretended not to see your text, or cried at 2am over you, I never redid my concealer in the bathroom by the French classroom -

You were too scared to let us be what we could have been; I wrote poems you’ll never read and made playlists you’ll never see, I never felt the warmth of your arms after a long day or learnt why you love your favourite song so much,

And I never will.

We had a whole future ahead of us, highs and lows and laughs and tears and you threw it away, You let me believe it and then you threw it away.

Was it all lies? What about when you said I was beautiful,

When you showered me in compliments, when you told me I was the sun, the stars –

How could you have been so wrong about me? And now you’re realising, backtracking, retracting the promises you made

As if they haven’t found a place in my heart now. As if you aren’t in my mind to stay now.

[bluedusksandpinkdawns]

I’m trying to define myself but no one ever taught me the words, And I think my greatest sin is that I can never learn anything for myself.

There are the brief moments where I am alive, Like when a cloud parts and the sun finally begins to seep through, When I run through the grass with earth between my feet – But there are so many more when I feel I am a moment away from disappearing,  Holding on to this universe by a mere thread, Nothing more than a shadow. 

Except sometimes I am a colourful explosion, I am chaos and metaphor and love, I am reinventing and rediscovering and I was made for this, The endless green of meadows and fields, tripping over trees, Laughing and spinning in the storm, I am made of memories and words I preserved, Childish laughter and a sense of belonging, 

I know we were hopeless and mismatched but a single song can take me back to the day We spent twirling in the rain and the time I convinced you we belonged, That we had a place in this world, And we lay under your bed and I wished you’d kiss me but you never did – 

I didn’t know love could cause such pain, Not when it was the gentle, mutual love between friends, Not when it was the love of childhood or nature or the stars in the sky and the earth on the ground –

I wish I could return, not forever but for a moment, I wish I could see the sun glint off the water without the fear of drowning in the back of my mind, I wish I could surround myself with softness again without being suffocated,

I don’t want to stay here forever but I hate that I have to leave forever –

Can I be autumn and summer and winter and spring? I want to light fires and curl up in the winter, I want to watch the snow gently fall to the ground and fire crackle in the hearth and drink hot chocolate and watch bad movies with family surrounding me, but still, I don’t want to give up another summer to do so.

I am five and I am nine and I am three and fifteen and twelve, sometimes I feel ancient and weary with this life, but I wonder at the rain and the cleansing of the world and the clear blue sky and I still love like a child does,

I won’t remember being here, the memories I have are hazy and distant at best, I am watching two lovers in the rain and I can hardly remember which is me or why they are here or how one of them will remember this day for the rest of her life and the other will forget

I wish I could remember all the times you held my hand I wish I could document them and replay them every time I felt alone, Except that I wouldn’t, sometimes I need to return to forest paths and the stars to feel myself again –

But they’re so far away now, who let them escape? I wish I believed in wishes again I watch the clouds part, the sun beaming down, I spent half my life fearing I’ve lost the ability to write

Memories that are so almost perfect I’ll spend my life remembering them, In my mind, they’re golden, sunlit, I hate them cause they’ll never return – I am the sum of all my good memories.

The sky seemed so bleak for so long, People seemed so vacant –

I think the colour is returning now, but I can never trust that it’ll stay.

[bluedusksandpinkdawns]

And I swear I almost loved you – In a useless, bitter way, I almost loved you.

We were so nearly something. Not in a nostalgic, rueful manner – I’m glad I never loved you quite in the way a romantic relationship required; we were horrible communicators, I cared too much about the little things and not enough about the big,

We would have been hopelessly mismatched, we probably narrowly missed a bullet

And you probably would have made me happy.

Why am I writing this? I’m being so selfish again, But your smile is alluring and intriguing and beautiful, and I’ll always love the stormy blue of your eyes, The playful, deliberate way you’d choose your words, Always slightly amused

How do I tell you that I love you, But not quite enough?

And I’ll always love you, always miss you, in that unique, useless kind of way.

I really miss you, damnit,

Your effortless intelligence, Your suspense, drama, regality – You’re so beautiful, and you probably don’t know.

[letters-never-sent]

There was beauty in the parting. Fire raged across the skies and burned a path for the stars. Our stars. But they don’t quite look the same here anymore.

[letters-never-sent]

At least, at the end, you gave me a burning sunset to say goodbye.

[letters-never-sent]

Memories, ebony, ivory, you. Cerulean blue. Tangled together haplessly like yarn for our fingers to unravel. I like you. I like like you. Do you get it? Do you understand when I say Bloom by The Paper Kites. Do you hear the unspoken, the untold words that are too strong for me to say aloud because I’m not that bold. Not yet. Not here. And I temper it with a laugh, tell you that a friend sent it to me first, pass it off as something other than a giving of my soul and a transcription of the aching.

I need to let go. Let my exhale carry you away like a leaf on the wind and let the pain that eddies in the gin I drown myself in fade. But with time, with time. I know it will get better with time and someday I won’t have to try for it anymore and morning will bring with it a new dawn where the sun shining through will show me a world that isn’t held by you alone. I know that in the end, the flowers will bloom again and the yarn I need you to help me unravel will come apart on its own for me to shape alone into something new. But until then, I will wait at the juncture of earth and sky, suspended in a stroke of white on a mirror over a crystal abyss and under an endless chasm of blue. Cerulean blue. Memories, ebony, ivory.

And you.

[letters-never-sent]

Anyway I’m tired of being tired and peace is something we make more than it is something that we find but goddamn I am tired of trying over and over again to make peace and life is a fight but I am tired of constantly fighting. I just want a damn break. I just want a rest, I want to be able to breathe and find some respite from it all for just one fucking minute is that too much to ask for. The emptiness is monotonous and I exist in a liminal space that isn’t quite alive but isn’t quite dead and that isn’t yet screaming but is far from silent and it bores me. Just give me something different. Give me something to sink my teeth into where I can hold on like a dog to its toy and find a contentment that is more than fleeting and a joy that cannot be spoken. Give me a reason to keep going.

[inkskinned]

just fucking kiss me already. i have no idea how to react around you. you’re always so skittish. always one foot out the door and ready for the leaving. i don’t know whether you want me closer or you want to be left alone. i have trouble seeing the obvious. just go and state it for me. don’t you know everything has gone crazy. who the fuck cares. just tell me if you like me.