Unsent Letters to Vienna

[viennaunsent]

I cried again today. It was hard not to. It's been almost a year, and I still get overwhelmed when I think about how I'll never be with you again.

I no longer hope for you to return to me. I know you won't. I also know that you're alive, hopefully well, and hopefully happy. I bear no anger toward you. I never will.

Losing you is a punishment to me, in a lot of ways. For not being enough for you, for being too much. For every misstep, every way I made you feel sad or hurt or uncomfortable. For everything before you, too. I never truly learned my lessons. I hurt two people before you and, even as I felt you drift away from me, I must've hurt you too. Enough for you to decide that you were done with me.

The price is this: I will never have you again. Even if we were to cross paths, we wouldn't be the same people. I will never have what we had again. I may never feel that kind of unconditional love again.

I like to think that maybe it wasn't me, maybe there's some cruel twist of fate that pulled you away from me. But I know that you chose this. And if you chose this, then you decided that I deserved it.

Still, the silence slices through me every single day. No goodbye. No explanation. No chance to apologize, to know what happened. Your last words to me were that you would be right back. I'll be forever waiting. In this lifetime, in the next, or perhaps for as long as this universe exists. My soul will wander, waiting for you to return, knowing that you won't.

I've always been too much. I hoped that you would love me despite that. For six years, I felt too comfortable. Too happy. I thought that we could stay like that forever, that you would learn to accept that I was too much. I'm afraid that those will be the only 6 years I'd feel that kind of happiness and love from someone so perfect to me.

I really wish I could've at least had a chance to say goodbye. Is that selfish of me? Have I not still learned my lesson?

I'm sorry. You always told me it wouldn't be forever. I'm sorry for not believing you. I wanted, so desperately, to live in those 6 years forever.

Everything has been so gray lately. I still think we were soulmates, and I'm sorry to you for having to be intertwined with me like this.

I hope you're happy, and safe, and I hope you don't hate me. I hope you remember me, even if not with love or fondness. Even if just in passing. I hope I didn't disappear from you that easily.

I wish I knew what else to say. This pain feels eternal. I love you.

-m

[viennaunsent]

I'm beginning to fear that I'll miss you forever. I look for signs of you - signs that you loved me or hated me or even thought about me at all. Signs that you're alive. Some days I can distract myself from the obsession for closure, the hurt of rejection. Other days, I don't have the strength to keep myself standing. Some days, I collapse onto the ground, knees bruised, and beg the universe to put me out of my misery. I wonder if I'll ever be able to stand on my own again. If I'll be able to do anything but drown in a haze of my own grief, my thoughts muddy and unreachable. It's hard to write. I may never be able to write the same again. I don't know if you hate me, if I'm pathetic for all this. I think I deserve it. I don't know what I did, but if this world has logic and meaning, then perhaps I deserve it. If I never find someone who was so in love with me again, I deserve it for letting it slip through my fingers. Sometimes I wish I could hate you, but I have no strength in me to hold onto it. If I'm miserable forever, away from you forever, I deserve it.

I know there's a me in there that existed before I knew you. I know I'll grow and become that person again. I can't tell if that's comforting or depressing.

I wish I could at least say thank you, or I'm sorry. All I have the strength to do right now is lay on the floor and scream and whimper and bleed. I deserve it.

I tried so hard to love you the right way. I'm so sorry if I messed it up.

I should've appreciated happiness while I still had it. I don't think I'll ever get it again. Maybe I deserve it.

[viennaunsent]

Sometimes it's too hard for me to grapple with the fact that you never promised me forever. You told me that our time was limited, and I didn't listen. You told me that we weren't normal, that there would never be a chance at a happy ever after, and that this was always going to be temporary. It's my fault for taking it as far as we did. It's my fault for mistaking your attention for love. You never wanted to love me the way I had grown to love you, and maybe you never did.

You're gone now, because you wanted to be gone. Away from me or away from the world, I may never know. But you chose that, and you knew the consequences. I wish I'd gotten a warning, a way to grieve you. Maybe it's my fault for loving you too much. I know I'm overwhelming. I just hoped it wouldn't push you away.

You're not coming back. I have to stop feeding the delusion that you are. But it hurts. It doesn't matter if I write all these letters to you, because you're gone and you'll never read them and you'll never hurt as much for me as I do for you right now.

You were right all along. Unrequited love was something to be afraid of. I'm sorry for ever doubting how painful it could be - I didn't think I'd ever walk into it this blindly.

I wish I knew the future. I can't feel anything anymore over the pain.

[viennaunsent]

To: You

Day 108

There are very few people in the world that I trust to share my feelings with. You were almost the only one. Almost. I'm lucky to have friends, to talk to people, to be distracted. But on days where I have nothing to distract me, I can't help but wonder if I should wait for you or move on from you.

Can I manifest your return? (You hate when people use that word.) Or, alternatively, are my thoughts manifesting a future where you don't return? Should I repeat, over and over, into the mirror that you will return until I believe it? I might. If it will take away the pain in my heart, I might. But then I wonder: is that healthier than facing the worst case scenario?

I used to be so good at knowing what would happen next. I was so perceptive, maybe I still am. If I meditated, would the universe reach out and hand me answers the way it has before? I'm desperate. It's unbecoming. I don't know if you want me to be like this, if you're thinking of me too, or if you're happy to be rid of me and tired by my resistance to letting go. If you could feel my soul reaching out toward yours, would you reach back?

Maybe I should be more positive, for a little while. Maybe it wouldn't hurt. I will see you again, if you want me to. I will be with you. I've always had a talent for manifesting things, even if you hated when I'd say it.

Hopefully, it won't be much longer. I miss you. I could write novels about how everything in my life has been shaped with your presence.

I will always have a place in my heart to hold my love for you. I can be patient.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 100

To: You

What can I say on this hot summer evening that expresses how much I've missed you?

I wish I could tell you that I've held onto hope every day since you left me. Hope's hand, brittle and frail, was crumbling under my grip. I had to let her go. Soon, I'll have to let you go too. But, today, I want to hold on just a little longer. Just one more day, I'll tell myself.

I'm sorry if that's not what you want. I'm sorry if it's selfish. It's all I have to hold myself together lately. I wonder, constantly, if this is what you want. If you would want me to think of you, to want you to come back, or if you would want me to move on. I think about if you wanted to leave me too, if you're happier now, or if it wasn't your choice either. I still hold onto the hope that you want to return. That you will return.

In 100 days, I've felt myself change so much. I'm a different person, for better or worse. It hurts to know that this isn't a version of me that you'll see. It hurts to know that you've seen me grow up over several years but you won't get to see me now. I won't get to see the person you are, or would've been, now.

I'm still in love with you. Maybe I always will be. I wish I could say that I've tried to get over you, but I don't think I ever will. I know it was never the same for you as it was for me, but I hope you can forgive me for being in love. Sometimes I see other people or other stories and how happy they end and I feel both bitter and hopeful. Why couldn't we have that? Maybe I have the strength to hold out until we can again. Maybe it will always be you, even when neither of us think it is.

I miss you so much that it tears my body apart any moment I let you linger in my thoughts. You are my everything. I hope you knew this. I hope that I can still be your everything too, and that you think of me well. I hope it wasn't my fault that this is all messed up.

I've tried to fill my life with other people in hopes that the loneliness won't hurt so bad but nothing can replace the way being with you made me feel. No one is as comforting as you. Or as funny, as kind, as caring, as creative, not even as silly. No one else is home.

I hope, one day, you can come home. When you want to. If you want to. I'll be here with the door unlocked.

I don't think I'll ever get over you. Not in 100 days, not in 100 years. I'm sorry for every way I've wronged you, every way I wasn't enough. I hope, wherever you are, you're happy. I hope you're warm and I hope you've found everything you ever needed.

If you ever need me. I'll be right where you left me. My heart is yours. My every word is yours.

I love you, always.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 88

To: You

I wish I didn't have to heal from you. I wish I didn't have to hear that song and remember that you'll never be mine again. Even if you return, days or weeks or years from now, you'll never be the person I was speaking to that day. I mourn your memory everyday, moving in a haze throughout my own life, caught between wanting to be happy in my cold present or wanting to linger in our warm past.

It wasn't always good. Maybe I should accept that, I wasn't always the person you needed. I did so much wrong but I can only think: so did you. We were okay, though, right? I'll never know. If you hated me in the end, I'll never know. All I can hold onto now is the hope that, in our last moments, you knew that I loved you. Deeply, passionately, unendingly. I wish I could stay angry, but all I can do is love you.

I don't fear starting over. I know, eventually, I will find my happiness. But I will never find a love like ours again. It comes once in a millennia. Brief, brilliant, and like a miracle. I can only be grateful for our past as every day toward the rest of my life approaches.

I can only hope that maybe one day, maybe lifetimes from now, my soul will find yours again. I hope that we get more time together next time. I hope you'll know that I waited for you, and that I left the door open for you to return whenever you needed me. I hope you recognize me when I say: "Welcome home."

I heard Vienna again today.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 67

To: You

"i swing between empathy and anger.

empathy because i know they're in painn.

anger because i'm in pain too,

but i never use it as an excuse to hurt others."

I wish that I could be a fairytale grieving maiden every single day. But I'm not. I think, more often lately, that I am angry, deep down, and hurt, and insulted. There's nowhere to redirect that anger and hurt, so it bounces within me, back and forth, frustratingly distracting.

I wish that you weren't still on my mind the majority of the day. I wish you didn't take up such a huge space in my heart, I wish you hadn't burned it to the ground. I wish I hadn't shown you everything that makes me vulnerable, and I wish you hadn't taken that with you when you disappeared.

I may never hear from you again. The longer time goes on, the more I wonder if I should accept that as a reality. The more I wonder if I'm embarrassing myself by caring so much when you've moved on. Am I selfish?

But if I'm selfish, so are you for putting me in this position. If I'm immature, so are you. I run every scenario I can in my head, testing every response I could give you when you return, or every explanation I'd have to give others if you didn't. I'm so stained by your existence that everyone will see the scars once they heal, and I'll have to be ready to explain.

I wish I could share every spiteful thought and angry thought and hurtful thought. I wish I could share every loving, empathetic, devoted thought. In the end, neither matter because I'd only be shouting them into a void.

I'm sorry that today, I was not loving and patient.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 63

To: You

So much has changed already. It may be small but I've grown as a person. I can't help but wish you could be there to see it. You always encouraged me and told me I could reach greatness, I hope you know that you were right.

I thought, just now, about how you used to calm me down if I was stressed or angry or frustrated. You would tell me not to stress twice over things, or make jokes to ease the tension, or simply help me through the difficult time with advice. I am always gonna be so grateful for that, and I'll keep that with me forever. That was you showing your love to me. I never took our time together for granted, but still, I wish we could've had more of it.

I wish I could pretend that I don't miss you, but I do. Everyday. I see you in the way I laugh, the quirks in my humor and vocabulary, the interests and hobbies I've gathered. I'm a stained glass window and you're in more panels than I can count. It's painful. But I try to remember that it's a blessing, too. I had another dream about you calling me. It was hard to wake up after, and realize it wasn't real.

For now, I'm trying to enrich myself with things that make me happy - accomplishments and hobbies and friends. It takes so much to begin to fill the gap in my heart that you took up so easily.

I really wish I had at least an explanation for why you went away. I wish I had closure. Maybe I never will, but I want to keep hoping you'll be back for me.

If you do come back for me, I'll make sure I can repay you for everything you've done for me. I owe you that.

Thank you, again.

-marsie.

P.S. I heard Vienna again after this, randomly. I like to think that somehow, some power, or the universe, or maybe you are giving me a sign.

[viennaunsent]

Day 57

To: You

Everything reminds me of you and I wish I could tell you about it.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 56

To: You

I don't have the luxury of getting to be angry at you. I wish I did, sometimes. But other times, I hear recordings of your voice or see old messages and I think about how kind you always were to me.

I may not know if you're alive, but you will always remain within me. I think about this: us telling each other that no matter what happens, we would never speak ill of each other. Do you remember this? Are you out there, thinking of this too? Thinking of me?

Are you alive?

I may never know. I have to begin to accept that I may never know, because I fear that if I hold onto hope for too long, I'll suffocate it.

I'm sorry if I ever suffocated you, I'm sorry if I was ever too overwhelming or too much. I wish I could dilute the emotions I feel, instead of letting them wash over me.

I have so many regrets, and I owe you so many apologies, but, at least feeling so deeply gave me one thing. I am thankful that I told you how much I loved you at every opportunity. I'm grateful that I could let you know. And if things are different from now on, I hope that all the love I put out into the world for you is enough for us both to find closure. If you're alive. If you choose not to return to me.

If you do return, the door is open for you. Always.

I know it's been hard for us both. I hope we can winter through it and make it out safely together.

I miss you, so dearly. I always will.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 54

To: You

I wish you would give me a sign. Either to wait or to stop waiting, to do something. I'm stuck in a limbo that consumes every moment of my day.

I miss you. When I see old texts or pictures or voice messages all I can think is that I should've been more grateful. I miss you.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 53

To: You

I skipped a day. Accidentally. It didn't mean that I didn't think about you, rather, I thought too much. I've replayed every possible scenario through my head over and over that I've begun to dream them. It's a reprise from the other dreams.

Remember when you used to have nightmares and wake up too frightened to even explain to me what they were? I could never find the right way to comfort you. I suppose that now, every single day that I wake up from a nightmare only to find myself in another one, this is my karma for never being enough.

Is it self centered to think this way? I haven't been able to consider that. I haven't been able to consider much else besides the words I would say to you if you ever returned.

I don't know if I'll ever accept the chance that you're never coming back to me. It's as hard of a concept to think about as what could exist beyond death if there was truly nothingness. Do you remember when I gave myself a panic attack for hours after trying to imagine that? I can't remember now if I knew you yet, though it was the same year that we would've met.

If I had a stronger imagination, it would've taken over as a defense mechanism by now. I kinda wish it would. I kinda wish I could separate myself from my body long enough to skip time until you return. And if that never happens, then I hope to never return to my body either.

I would've never told you that, though. You used to think that I had found a way to heal myself, that I was strong. I only buried it all so deep that I thought nothing could bring it back. Without you, I'm realizing, I've had far too much time alone and it's been digging itself up like a zombie from a grave. It's only a matter of time before it claws its way up my throat and out of my mouth. I swear that you will never bear witness to it. If I can survive it a second time, maybe I can survive you. If that's what you want me to do. You know I'd rip my own body to shreds in a second if you asked me to. I'd stop my own heart if you wanted. If it meant yours could continue to beat, if it meant you could be okay.

My darling, I miss you too much to wish any ill upon you. Give your pain to me instead. I can bear it if it means I could have you again, even for a second.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 51

To: You

I keep daydreaming of all the ways you'll return. I keep hoping that you'll appear one day, apologies in your hands like flowers, and I will pretend to be mad but mostly be relieved. Maybe I'll talk about how much pain I've been in. Maybe I won't. I'll force you to watch every show I've seen since you've disappeared, and I'll catch you up on everything about me that has changed. I'll make sure it was like we were never apart at all.

It hurts too much to remind myself that you aren't coming back.

-marsie.

[viennaunsent]

Day 50

To: You

This morning, the radio sang out "Vienna waits for you," while I drove down the same boring street to my same boring job. I swerved into the wrong lane when I heard it. For the smallest second, I thought that it was you.

Today is day 50 without you. I wish I could say that I've cried every day since. I've cried many. Some days are easier. Some days, I manage to be so caught up in the excitement of my rapidly fleeting youth that I find a place for you in the corner of my mind to put you aside, if just for a moment.

Do you want me to be happy? I'm not sure if you think about me.

I'm too young to know who wrote that song. I've only heard it in passing, maybe in a movie. But still, in that moment, I couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, you're waiting for me too.

I guess that's just coping, isn't it?

I wish I could write this more eloquently, more poetically. I wish it flowed better, I wish I could run it by you to edit the way I've always relied on you for. I can't imagine writing anything understandable after 6 years. 2440 days. In comparison, 50 days should feel like nothing, but it has been a longer hell without you than all 2440 ever felt with you.

Is it too much to ask the universe to send you a sign that reminds you of me too? Is it too much to ask the universe to keep you alive, if you still are at all? I wish I knew. I wish you were here to comfort me through this.

We're too young to know death this intimately. You always believed in reincarnation. I hope that in another life, we find each other again. Even if I will never find peace again in this life, even if I won't remember the you that would call me pet names and keep me up late laughing and teach me kindness in a world that lacks it, I hope our souls find each other again. You've always made me feel kinder. You've always made me feel braver. I'll be thankful if another me can be happy again with another you, somewhere, someday.

I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me.

-marsie.