A letter to the one that got away.
My pen always runs out of words when I start writing towards you.
Even though in my mind, I’ve already spoken a thousands of words to you, pouring each and every inch of pain and resentment I feel in this hollow heart, whenever I try to bring them to life, try to give them presence on a white sheet of paper, they vanish like air.
What happened to us, darling? I ask this question so frequently to the ‘you’ inside my head that sometimes, I can even pretend that it’s real. The persona I have of you in my mind supplies me with just the right emotion and answer I need every time; whether to increase the level of pain inside me or to soothe the wound that can’t be contained no matter how many stitches I put on it. The ‘you’ inside my head knows who I really am and what I desire, and it’s so da*n funny because, you, the real you held this same position not too long ago.
You knew me. And then suddenly, you didn’t.
I always tell myself that we both were a beautiful tragedy. I always yearned for it, remember? When I didn’t know the agony it’d bring, I always yearned to be the one that got away. But now, I wish I knew back then that to be the one that got away, I would also need to be the one that needed to let go. And as it turns out, I am terrible at letting you go.
Because if I had let go of you, I wouldn’t be right here, in this moment, writing a letter that will never see the curious glint of your eyes or never feel the warmth of your hand. I wouldn’t be here, writing a letter to you, of all people who marks one of the biggest scars I have on my heart. It’s not right, not justified. But yet here I am.
Sometimes I feel like a tacky Taylor Swift song when it comes to you, you know. That heartbroken line of her pleading voice saying “I just want to tell you, that it takes everything in me, not to call you.” Hits me closer to home than anything else ever hit me and it just so da*n funny really. Because I never even liked Taylor Swift, but I still find myself listening to this same song over and over again on most nights, just because it reminds me of your existence. I don’t know what to do with it. I was never good at faking indifference when it came to you.
I don’t know if I could even call this a heartbreak. Anyone in this world, if they saw me like this, will say that I had been in love, that I am still in love with you. And I will admit to this, to an extent, that I was, still am, desperately in love with you. But that love isn’t something that I could ever make anyone understand. I don’t even understand it myself at times, just to what extent it takes from me. It’s not romantic or sensual, not soft nor is it sexual and I can’t even pretend to myself that it’s platonic. All I know is that I yearn for you or something that you had offered me long ago, and then snatched it away from my fingers when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Did I fail you when I denied you? I always wondered about this. Was I that selfless towards you which made you this selfish in the end? These questions haunt me. You haunt me.
Or is this all completely a fragment of my own imagination? Am I the only one who’s thinking like this? Am I the only one who’s given the utmost value to this when you don’t even know what this is? Have I imagined you up? Am I hurting for nothing at all? It’s confusing. The silence from your side is confusing. And lonely.
I used to touch your face with these hands of mine, do you remember? I used to run my fingers through your hair and complain about how off putting, messy and curly they were and you used to laugh. So open, free and inviting; telling me with your eyes that you see me, that it’s okay for me to complain and mock you because you know my words have double meanings. Then how come you don’t see me now? Have you never realised that it’s in my silence I speak the loudest. Have you not realised that what I don’t say aloud is what I mean the most? Don’t you realise that your curly hair was my one most favourite thing in the world and now I can’t even look at anyone with curly hair because it reminds me of you?
I realise how non platonic this letter seems. How god awfully cliche my words sounds and how melodramatic I am being over such simple things like a possessive lover. But that is the thing, I AM possessive. I am possessive over the things that were mine, of things I cared about. And you were mine weren’t you? You were the one person to whom I laid down half of the ocean of care I had in me. Then you just left like I didn’t matter. So how can you expect me to not be possessive of you? How can you expect me to not brood and whine and cry in agony like a hurt little brat that I am?
You were my possession, my creation and my little salvation and you left. And it has driven me back and forth from insanity. And as I said before, we have never been platonic. There had been no sparks, no electricity or thunder between us, just recognition. Recognition of your presence and recognition of mine. We had always just been ‘that’. There. Together.
It was never a question to me whether we were friends or lovers. Thoughts so bizarre never even crossed my mind. And why should they? I saw myself in you. Why should I wonder about what you were to me when my own existence reflected in you? Was I delusional to see all that? If not, then how do you expect me to move on? How can you be so cruel?
You are just that arent you? Cruel. So bloody cruel. So heartless at times so very very cold. I wonder if you got that part of you from me as well. You can rip my heart apart into billions of pieces without even glancing at me, do you know that? It’s astonishing really, I find myself laughing at times thinking just how badly you can fu*k me up in the head with meaningless words. Do you know how much effect you have on me? Do you know the extent of your damage? I don’t know how even looking at a person can feel this painful.
But you are just that now, mind numbingly painful.
I wish I had never met you. I wish you never had met me.
Source: BAH( Bangladesh Against Homophobia)