#writingtheunsaid

[letterstosaudade]

today I find myself writing to you again, same as our younger years. I guess I've reached the level of introversion where i feel the need to put down my thoughts in solitude later, lest they disturb the actual event. you will please appreciate that the following thoughts have taken an enormous amount of effort for me to put down on paper because the matter at hand is so tenuous. You came here the other day and you achieved pretty much all that you had set out to do- which was primarily providing much needed face time, explaining your stand to me, proving to me that my decision to leave was rash and generally making me feel very good about myself- inside and outside. I think it was a successful day for you in that sense- but not for me. I felt a little niggling sense of things not quite lining up, and I didn't understand why until much later.Now, if we put all the eloquent words and the bells and whistles aside. I couldn't help but notice that there was a distinct undercurrent of unease inside of you. your energies were all over the place- I mean you're generally very self assured, and were this time too, but it was almost like there was a dark curtain inside of you hiding something you didn't want to share with me for whatever reason.There was a lot of posturing in your words and in your actions.. they were almost theatrical, and 'designed' to make me happy in the shortest, most effective way possible. As if you were the ringmaster and i was the lion to be tamed? I could also sense a bit of darkness.. like you didn't want to be here. the slightest undercurrent of something basal.. fear maybe? what are you battling inside that is turning out all the lights inside of you? what storms are brewing inside of you? you seemed like you were walking on a thin, taut line with danger on either side.I don't intend to paint you into a corner with all this, and you certainly don't owe me an explanation for any of it. I thought about letting it go, because everyone is entitled to their own privacy, but I couldn't help atleast acknowledging it, because what kind of friend am I otherwise? Besides, I simply cant bear the thought of you being in distress and me not doing anything about it.I will just leave you to it after saying the following: hey, it's only me. I'm the same person I've been for the last several years, and I know you inside and out. I'm still attached to you emotionally and feel your pain and your joys. Whatever load you're carrying, if you'd like to carry it alone, please do. But atleast know that I know, I commiserate, and that I will hold your hand while you carry it. I'm here to stand with you in whatever you may choose to do. And if you ever want to talk about it, I promise never to be critical.. only to provide empathy and support.Know that you never have to make any efforts with me. Had I known that you were going through something somewhat dark yourself, I would never ever have tried to lean on you. You don't have to posture to make me happy. I derive my happiness from very simple things.. like the sound of your voice, or the fact that I got to make you a sandwich. If you painted this white, then let it be the sanctuary where you come to put down our guard. not raise it higher.

Submitted via email

[letterstosaudade]

How do I dispose of thee? How do I bend your memories when all I have is no dispenser and a bowl of longing? The poet preaches and you kneel at her feet and I, wake and writhing, I attempt her mask on my face. It falls. My pain becomes of me more becoming than love ever felt on my skin. I wear it and I am weary of this non-triumph. I am stuck in deadlock and I fight, scratch, bite, hit at all that has to be done away with. But I am afraid of everything. A speck of your remembrance and I’m pushed back against the wall. There are tremors within my chest - it is as if the walls I construct come crumbling at a bare mention of your memory. Which is to say, always. I am no longer alone then in my despair - my heart and I, we are separate but never apart. My heart - you. I kiss my fingers and I find you.

And every time a calm enters the crevices of the deep, dark place I inhabit, I see her and I see you. And that is where it all ends and I start from scratch. When will I heal, when will I claim what I long to claim and when will my resolve find me peace? I shudder at the thought of losing in the end - these memories of you. I told myself initially that this was the grand love affair that awaits all / it is  pity it happened too soon and though I want to erase, I am unable to. Is that how you seek her too? Is that why this no longer is important - I am not important and you make it look like I never was at all! I want the love to part way, I want you begging for a touch of me again but all in vain. She claims my space, she inhabits my memories and she inhabits my skin. I fall, I fall, I fall incessantly. The heartbreak never ends - first, losing you. Second, gaining. Third, losing you once and for all. Fourth, claiming a space in your mind, of not your heart. Fifth, losing myself fully and finally to her distractions. Sixth, ousted completely from thought - from existence. Perhaps a little more than completely, even. If I were a canvas and you were to paint, would I not be all red and blue already? You move on to another, listless and uninterested in the one you began with. What am I then, undeserving of improvement? I chase your ghost in my head and I feel as if though I am being driven out by one infinitely better than myself. I write about her - to the extent that in wanting to become one with you, is that I wish to love her too, same as you do? Imagination supplements. Did all that really happen with us, whatever took place? Were you and I ever “we”? Were we together / were “we”? My god, was it so long ago that I satisfy myself with false plans. I will still see you, I will still be loved by you. In a distant land, an alternative galaxy, where you and I have not been ousted by the demands of reality, perhaps you still love me. I know I will never not.