I have been trying to write this letter to you for three days. And if you still know anything about me, I never get writer’s block for this long. I’ve read some books and they say to let your words sit, do not reedit a thing until you have drained the neck dry of ink. I have been trying to write this for you for three days and I have been sleeping right before the words came out, but I think there’s no better time than now. I should not write this, but I must. That’s the thing about loving someone like you. You may not be here, but the little clearing you left beside my bed has grown weeds and I’ve been plucking, baby, I’ve been trying to grow myself and I have been trying to forget about the times we have spent smiling and I talked to your sister in law two days ago and I told her about my guilt, but she reassured that I always made you happy even if it meant you ended up breaking down in tears and I have spent these last three days wondering as to why you fall in love with boys who have dark eyes and their favorite color is red. I have been lost in the sea of this so called ocean in my eyes that you have sank into and I have been trying to burn this thick bridge made from gold, but it shortens away and you claim the soul of your lovers are all made from fire, but I’ve been around your heart long enough to know that it isn’t us.
Not your new guy. Not your old guy.
Not the ones who have tried
to unhook your bra.
Not the ones who have tried
to face your smile.
Not me.
It’s you.
Before we started to write this painful story, we were just friends and like everyone else we decided to write these little letters from across the hallways of history and empty skulls of the past and the first time I felt the weight of your soul as you hugged love into me near the red stairway of high school, I think I finally felt the embrace of beauty and sin and the time I got caught at your place and knew your parents would never accept young kids who didn’t plan to grow up– I think they knew too.
It would not end well for us and I know I’ve said it in the worst way, but: I still love us.
And I have been trying to call you for the past three days, but I am this close to forgetting your number and I have been trying to text you, but I am this close to forgetting the way your smile looks and I have been trying to not love you because your new guy deserves everything that you could not give to me and you deserve everything that I could not give to you and I love him this much for it and if the poetry isn’t enough, do you know our curse?
You are burdened to read forever
and I’m burning to always write.
The fucking fireplace you lit never doused.
The fucking smile you put into my thoughts–
It never fucking left.
And I know I have a sailor’s mouth–
and I know I loved like a snake’s bite–
But if it meant anything to you,
the poetry is not painful,
it just sounds like pain.
The poetry still reminds me of two kids who sat and laughed at the corniness of love and what it meant to make mistakes. To get jealous of lovers who could never touch us again and I stopped comparing you to the sun when you started to show colors of a phoenix that never stops dying to keep my heart forever in ashes–
Forever in flames and baby,
I know I don’t call anymore and I know the poetry isn’t sweet anymore and I know it just means that we’re becoming islands and you’re filled with different variations of birds, of nightingales who dare to travel the sea–
Who don’t give any care about loveless people we have fell for and I’m sorry that we still love like those two kids who sat in front of that piano and played our sad, sad notes about never stopping for a second as long as we were together and I’m sorry that we came to this.
We’re five planets away and three oceans apart, but these past few days–
These last three fucking days.
I have been thinking about you.
I have been meaning to call you.
I have been wanting to love you.
I have been needing to need you.
And it’s not the same as before,
because the past is the past
and I have broken my promise
of always being there and I
could not keep such a simple one:
To always pick up.
How can I pick up when all I want to do is scream because I am not okay and it’s been almost a year and I should be over this and I should not reach for a heart that still has mine attached to it and they say that love creates emptiness where fullness used to be, but if being there for you everyday said anything about me, it was that even if I did love you wrongfully, even if I was the worst.
There was some right to me.
And we used to do this cute thing where we would take turns being right and I loved it so much, but selfish as it seems we always fought to be right and I know I haven’t written to you lately about things that really mattered unless I hid behind a song of metaphors all intended to break you, but I’m tired of hiding from myself and if I’m being honest.
I still love you like we never broke.
I still love you like the first time we smiled.
I still love that picture of us eating ice cream.
I still remember the blues you have left in my dark brown shirt and summer made the fireflies jealous and I know my heart is still around you because I have not made an attempt to steal it back and if you didn’t know or if you’re hiding too. You always had it.
Wrapped inside of a blanket.
Kept inside of a chest.
Locked inside of your safest laughter.
Hidden beneath your palms.
I have been trying to write this for three days and I finally got the guts to address you directly and I know you said that I have been forgiven for the longest time and I know you tried your hardest to remain as friends because when you lost a lover, baby you also lost your best friend and for all of the tyranny that we put each other through I still remember two kids who walked the sand and counted each little drop of the sun ray that dripped into the wrinkles of our youth and I know I couldn’t love you right, but if we could do this cute little thing once more?
Baby, can I be right once more?
Can I be right this time?
I know you still love us
and I still love you too.
I’m sorry that it took three days to write this and I know you love boys with fire in their souls because you placed it there and I know you love the ocean in our eyes because you drowned into it with those blue lightning lips that we once shared. And I know each time your body is shared with boys like us, we tend to electrocute you and we tend to wither your pretty little smile and if you don’t know me anymore, baby, it’s okay. I still look for you in a crowd room and I found you in people that I couldn’t love and it’s okay to fill your heart with things we can’t feel anymore–
But even if you have already let go of us,
I don’t think that I can.
I know that love meant that we spent April trying to find out the perfect way to say it and I know your room is still stained with the times when I threatened to leave and I still find ways to make you feel even if we don’t talk anymore.
I know you have cried a few times because you lost a best friend. I lost mine too.
I know you wanted to call, but know I would never pick up again.
I know you still think about my first smile.
I hope you know that I still think about yours.
I hope you know that I have been meaning to call you mine, but we have moved on and it’s just a slow process to forget the love of my life and I know– I’m 23 years old too young to say such things, but if the poetry you left for me meant anything at all, it is that no one can replace you even if they tried.
Can I be right one more time?
Just this once?
I hope I never become your only regret.
I hope I never forget about you.
I hope he loves you right.
I hope you love him right.
I have been trying to write this for three days and I finally understand why love doesn’t break hearts even.
I finally understand all of the quotes I have read because we are still that deep into this hole like we were when we fell into it.
I finally understand you.
I understand why you left.
I understand why you left the poetry.
I understand why we are.
I understand why we were.
I understand why we will be.
So. I finally wrote this–
