This is not a Love Letter

Hello, it’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you still think of me the way I think of you. Okay, I might have exaggerated the time a little, but it feels like several infinities have passed since the last time we spoke, so forgive me for the slight exaggeration. Your favourite song came on the radio and I drowned as wave after wave of nostalgia hit me. I’m still a little wet from all the tears I drowned in, but my head is clearer now and I decided to write you a letter.

Don’t mistake this for a love letter, it’s not. I’m not writing to ask you to come back; I’m not writing to ask if you have reconsidered us since the last time we talked about us, which was the last time we talked about anything. I’m simply writing to you, because that’s the only way I know how to maintain any form of connection to you. It’s a perfect system if you ask me, because you don’t get to read what I write. But, I imagine that you do, and in my imagination, a sad smile crosses your face every time you read what I write to you. Sad but beautiful. God, you are beautiful.

I digress.

This is not a love letter, but if it was, I’ll tell you how much I miss you. Dammit, I miss you. With every breath, every sigh, every smile, every single moment of everyday since you left. I miss you like I imagine the night sky misses the moon when it’s acting coy. I miss you the way I imagine the stars miss the darkness during the day, because how else will they show off their beauty? I miss you; you with your borrowed time, you with your half crumbs, you with your “I’ll call you backs” that never happen, you with your suppressed emotions, you with your big dreams, you with your forehead kisses, you with your…God, how I go on and on.

If this was a love letter, I would tell you about how saying good bye to you anytime we saw felt like I was leaving a lung behind and told to go on and survive with just the other lung.  I’m perfectly good at concealing my emotions behind a pretty smile and hasty good byes, but inside, inside, I was caught in the middle of a storm, and you were the safe house I was supposed to run towards, but instead I had to leave. Now, now I wish I never hid how I really felt. Maybe if I gave way to the tears that threatened to escape from my eyes then, maybe you’d have held me for a while longer…maybe my skin would have held on to that memory of you for much longer.

If this was a love letter, I would tell you that you were my strength and without you I’m like a blind man abandoned in the middle of a crowded room and told to find his way around on his own. To quote a song we like, “without you I ain’t shit, but no pressure”. I bumped into a wall a few times, but, I’m doing better.

If this was a love letter, I’ll tell you that even though I never directly told you that I was hopelessly in love with you, I told you in every other thing I said to you. When I asked how your day was; when I asked if you are doing okay; when I asked if your flu was better; when I said good night; when I said anything that came out of my mouth to you, I was screaming “I love you”, and since we’re where we are now, I can only assume that you didn’t hear. Did you hear? Perhaps I should have been bolder- louder, but we’ll never know now.

If this was a love letter, I’ll tell you how I think you are a fallen star, but only because heaven was not big enough to hold your magnificence. I’ll tell you how I think your smile could light up any darkness, for if it can banish the darkness that resides in my soul, it can go up against any form of darkness. I’ll tell you that my hand fits into yours like two pieces of a puzzle, that your heart is safe with me, that…that you are my soulmate. All these I’m very sure of.

But this is not a love letter, and I’ll not be telling you any of these. I only wrote to say that I think about you still. And that I hope you are doing okay, and that adulting is not kicking your ass and that you are feeding properly. Are you?

 

Score- Memories- Maroon 5.

Image credit- BBC.com