Dear Ezekiel,
There is no one I have ever missed more than I miss you. Every time I close my eyes, I see yours looking back at me. It's agony, waiting for your arms to wrap around me in our bed, now cold and only mine.
Sometimes I'll lay and imagine it, pretend you're holding me until I fall to sleep. Running your calluses fingertips against my scalp and my stomach, riding up over your hand. I'll imagine your hot breaths blowing into my hair and the fingers that rake it back into place. I'll imagine the feet brushing over mine, the legs that work their way between mine until you're holding me close enough to confine my breaths. Sometimes, it's the only way I can sleep.
I ache to touch you, your silky, evanescent hair that is the slightest bit oily, the soft shirt and means you wear so I don't get overwhelmed. I ache to smell the motor oil and cardamom and everything else that was uniquely you. I ache to run my hands are on the stubble on your neck until you make me stop for my own good.
It's been almost four years since you last heard from me. In those years, I've lost myself and have been trying to find me ever since. A year ago, I realized I'd done something unusual, that no one had ever done before. I... I'd turned my mental illnesses- my anxiety, my depression, my anorexia, mutism, age regression, anger issues, and OCD- into people.
People I could interact with, who had names and personalities beyond their disorders. Who were family and me and so, so real. Who affected me in real life. People I could hate and fear and miss. People I could love, and people that were capable of loving.
Elizabeth (OCD) took over for my mother when she died. She was always in athletic clothes, and she was very much a put-together-but-falling-apart-rapidly young mother of twenty three. She did her best to hold us in line, to keep us in check, make sure I was fronting and not anyone worse.
Roselyn (Mutism/my nonverbal tendencies) waa the one I knew most about, at least previously to this life. Once upon a time, we'd truly had DID, back when her husband and Jon had walked into her life and left just as quickly. She had been reduced to an apathetic being who couldn't speak and was known for making us dissociate if she fronted.
Ariel (age regression) was her, but young. Ariel was my friend when I was little, and we'd color quietly for hours at the coffee table with her favourite twistable crayons. She couldn't speak in this state, either, but she was much more communicative in other ways.
Emilee (anorexia) wasn't in full force yet at this time. But if started to gain weight that year, and she's constantly have me skip a meal or two of I could get away with it. If I was eight at the time, I was scared of her and ergo very susceptible to listening.
Faery (anxiety) was... me. I was the host, the center of it all, all the chaos that was my family. I was naive and fearful and clung to Depression's side.
Depression vengeful. He was jealous. He was prideful and had to be right and convinced me of it, too. He did his best to keep me naive, his precious little angel.
Ezekiel (depression) was kind. He was bitter and feral, wild and scarily relaxed. He was angry and vile and would yell for hours, and would spend hours making it up to me. He just wanted to protect me. He promised. I was too young to face these things.
He was abusive. He gave me gifts like stuffed animals and fairy lights for m y room. He was bitter. He would pick out outfits for me, usually with my favourite thigh high striped socks. He was feral. He would argue my side of Elizzie was parenting me or telling me to do or not do something. He was scary. He loved me.
And it took until he was gone for me to realize it.
I'm older now. I'm tired, and have fallen in love time and time again. I have a girlfriend who I devote my heart and soul to. I give and get more love than I have ever gotten from even my own family, and I get to be with people who understand what I need.
I have learned to deal with life. I'm on a high dose of anxiety and depression meds, and I know what to do if I feel wrong in any way. I have chewies, I still by rocking and wiggling and sucking on jewellery and letting soft things, and I can recognise when my blood sugar is dropping (a consequence of anorexia). I've gained fifty pounds and now sit at 120 and I love myself more than ever.
Sometimes I have bad days. I'll lay in bed, too tired to be awake and too awake to fall asleep, and I'll imagine his hands running through my hair. I'll remember his last words to me, telling me how he'll protect me from them. I hear his voice whisper apologies and pleas, begging me to stay, but I know it's not real.
He left me years ago, on a sleepy day in a boring class.
And I have never dated to tell him what I feel for fear that boa constrictor will crush me to his chest again.