Short Story Love – In Letters
Photo credit: kconnors from morguefile.com
Dear you,
If I could tell you in person, if words can convey what I want you to know, this would be really, truly, amazingly easy. If I could stand in front of you, without my breath escaping me and my heart sinking, I could say it. I could tell you what I’ve been meaning to tell you for the past eight years.
I have known you for more than eight and half years and I am sure most of them have flown by in endless sleepless nights. The bags under my eyes, you are to blame for those. I don’t know why I must be telling you this, finally and in this obscure way, after all those years of manic silence. I don’t know what has caused me to suddenly awaken from my intricately woven strings of slumber and reach out to my desk to finally colour blank pages with blue ink– in a seemingly hopeless bid to express my feelings.
But what I do know, is the sad fragility of life. My oh my, have I been down with the blues all my sad freaking life. And it is equally as disturbing that I wake up, right at this moment when I realise all the time has slipped away. That I realise that all I needed was you to just stay put till I collected all my scattered courage. But I see you now, wide and clear with my usual ordinary eyes. Yes, dear, I have opened my tightly shut eyes to see you, in your sheer blinding light, fading away.
You might, most definitely have, well, forgotten the feel of my face– the only time you touching it being in the depths of my subconscious, or in some sundry everyday push-and-pull. I seem to have forgotten the first times I saw you. It’s funny if you expected me to remember for I am not those dramatic types. But in my own ways of course, there were days I only saw you disappear. I don’t know how I am still, maybe, warm now in the back of your mind as you comb through my tangled emotions in carelessly arranged words.
You are like a splash of colour in lost motions of monochromia. I am truly amazed by the ways and means of your memories infiltrating my concrete silence and turn everything into complete strands of meaning. It is surprising to see that your words are yet to escape me, yet those are things most oft lost in everyday mundanes.
I am sorry, for yes, it was I who left those flowers at your door, in your desk, behind your car and taped to the window. I am sorry, because I did not know you were allergic to pollen. I must say, I did not regret doing any of that. I know I am hopeless, utterly stupid in writing down cheap poetry on handmade paper in my ineligible handwriting. I apologize for that. Also for looking at you and then looking away as soon as you caught me– it’s weird, I understand. I confess, I am still quite afraid of your father. I still imagine him holding a shotgun ready whenever I cycled past your house.
I knew. I knew when you broke down after leaving home. I saw you cry at your mother’s funeral behind the old oak tree, away from the people. I saw you get hurt, I saw you come back. But have you ever seen me? I wonder all the time. It is funny how you can see the world through your own two eyes yet fail to even consider my presence. It is rude, and hurtful.
I know you are there, looking at me, thinking what kind of an idiot does things like this, like writing a letter-like eulogy to speak for, or maybe not. It’s cowardly and utterly stupid. But it is kind of a relief to me. You are there, now in your bubble shattering, awakening, going away. Maybe through the shadow of my mere, poor words, you can maybe see how much you were loved. You were loved. By the people around you, and by those who weren’t. You were, loved.
Due to the fault of the postman or just by sheer luck, you might be reading this. Or not while you lie awake in your mind while drifting in deep limbo. You looked at life in your own ways and for the life of me, I don’t know why you couldn’t look past the darkness. I heard, way too late. And yet, I am making an effort to tell you that you were adored and cherished, by earthly beings like myself.
I could never understand your need to hurt yourself to love yourself. I don’t know why you thought that maybe the world was too cruel to you. And now I will never know why you were so alone when all the world around you thought they belonged to you in some ways.
I am truly sorry, one last time in this letter and will be all my life, for I cannot come. I cannot attend your funeral. I am sorry. It is just too much bear. So much so that I cannot even watch from afar as you marry yourself into the nothingness of the ground and just disappear forever. No, no. It is too much for one person and more for a weakling like me.
I won’t be attending your final goodbye. Though I have my suit ready and my flowers await your acceptance.
You were loved.
Yours,
Me
