Letters I’ll Never Send

By Habib

You left on a Thursday. Or maybe you left long before that, when we stopped looking each other in the eye. I don’t know where the promise went — the one you made under the half-finished bridge when we were seventeen and I was drunk on cheap wine and you were drunk on the idea of forever.

I want to tell you this: I don’t hate you anymore. Some nights I think I do — when the cold half of my bed mocks me, when I hear your favorite song by accident in a stranger’s car. But mostly, I just miss what we thought we were building: a fortress of whispered secrets, movie ticket stubs, and coffee spoons left in the sink.

I see you in the streets sometimes. Not really you — just men who wear their hair too long and laugh too loud. They remind me I used to love someone who believed I was enough. I want you to know: I forgive you for not staying. I forgive myself for thinking you would.

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To the Friend Who Vanished Into the Future

You were my first secret-keeper. The one who knew I lied about why my father didn’t come home. The one who taught me how to braid my hair and say no to boys who only called after dark.

We grew up in bedrooms that smelled of pencil shavings and pink nail polish, windowsills crowded with plastic trophies and last year’s birthday cards. We swore we’d go to Paris together. We swore we’d be each other’s maid of honor, that we’d grow old in rocking chairs on a porch somewhere, talking about the dumb boys we loved too hard.

But you disappeared, piece by piece. I think you needed to. You needed a world bigger than the cracked sidewalks we chalked rainbows on. You needed new air, and maybe I needed to stay behind.

I still check for you. I type your name into search bars when I can’t sleep. Sometimes I find pieces — a photo, a quote, a comment under someone else’s life. You look happy. You look free. I hope that’s true. I hope you still braid your hair the same way.

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To the Father I Didn’t Know How to Love

There’s a letter I wrote you when I was twelve. It’s hidden inside an old shoebox with a cracked lid. I wanted to read it to you that day when you asked me why I looked at you like a stranger. But I didn’t have the words. I still don’t.

You were a ghost in my childhood home footsteps on the stairs at midnight, a car door slamming in the driveway. You loved me the only way you knew how: with hard rules and harder silences. I know now you did your best.

Some nights, when the house creaks the way yours did, I swear I hear your voice. You’d laugh at that me, talking to a man who never talked back.

If you were here, I’d pour us both a cup of bitter tea. I’d tell you I forgive you for being made of stone. I’d tell you I know I am, too.

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To the Version of Me I Left Behind

You’re sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, eating cereal from the box because you don’t want to dirty another dish. You’re humming a song you don’t know the name of. The window is open and you’re shivering, but you like the cold because it reminds you you’re real.

I want you to know I miss you the raw edges of you, the stubborn faith that the world was secretly on your side. I’ve sanded those edges down to survive. I wear clothes that match. I pay my bills on time. I smile when I’m supposed to.

But sometimes, just before sleep, I see you. And I wonder what you’d think of me now this carefully ironed, polite version. You’d probably laugh. Maybe you’d roll your eyes. Maybe you’d ask me to come sit beside you on that cold kitchen floor, promise you won’t tell anyone if I cry.

If I could send you this letter, I’d say: Keep humming. Keep the window open. Don’t grow up too fast.

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To the Stranger I’ll Love Someday

I don’t know your name yet. Maybe you’ll love mornings, the way I dread them. Maybe you’ll laugh at the way I talk too much when I’m nervous. Maybe you’ll see the ghosts I carry and hold out your hand anyway.

When you arrive, I hope you’ll understand these letters. They are not confessions of unfinished business, but proof that I tried that I loved people imperfectly and let them go, that I forgave them when they didn’t come back.

When you arrive, I hope you stay long enough to hear the letters I never write. The ones I whisper against your shoulder when the lights go out. The ones that say: You’re here. I’m here. That’s enough.