Dear Dark-Haired Woman in the Sun,

I’m sure being Indian is the least interesting thing about you.

But I need to address this because I now believe it is possible to die of sadness.

My love for myself is conditional, and I can tell that yours is not.

You smell like patchouli when you glide past me, outlined beautifully through steam coming off the water of the hot spring. We are very high up in the mountains, trees and immense rock fixtures holding us here together - I have run for awhile, but now I am forced to look at you.

I’m sifting through the pain, trying to find something worthy of writing down, of writing to you. But most things sound terribly cliché and through this I realize how special I am not. How commonplace my experience is, how the loss of love is a casual affair - the human condition at its finest. And I crumble to dirt at my own feet. I watch your skin glisten with the dew drops of spring water.

I want to tell you all these things so that I don’t have to hold it all alone. So someone like you can tell me, “oh that’s just how it is, it has nothing to do with you, you did nothing wrong, you said nothing as impactful as the color of your skin. You could have been any white woman. That’s just the way things are.” Then maybe I wouldn’t have to take so much responsibility for the inevitable end. I wouldn’t have to beat myself into dust, chipping away at my brain like, “you could have been this, you should have said that,” until I’m crawling everywhere instead of walking, half a human. You’ve fallen in love with the wrong person at some point, haven’t you?

I think often of how he drove back to me after visiting family in the sunshine and mild weather of the California coast. The sunset over the mountains, the open roads calling him to leave me. I feel sick to think of him right now, gripping the wheel, going over in his head how he will end this “thing.” And maybe that’s not even how it happened. Maybe he cried and it took all the courage he could muster to let me down. Whatever way I think of it, I melt deeper and deeper into the ground.

We knew from the start that his family would not approve of me. The color of my skin, my customs, everything I laugh about. I told him I’d make everyone blueberry pancakes. He smiled - as if anything I could do would be close to enough. But there’s a sick, sabotaging piece of me that likes it that way. The woman who is up for the challenge! The fight for love like it's something to be won, a lifestyle to fit myself into so everyone can look at me and say “wow, she’s so adaptable. And she loves that man so much.” When really I’m just slowly becoming a shell of a soul, trying to formulate itself. Fitting myself into tiny containers until I become so far away from myself, and in so much pain no matter where I go or who claims to love me.

I guess in a way, for just a little while, he allowed me to escape the reality of having to become someone. Of choice. It was all conveniently laid out for me, and I could rest in knowing I’d always be a little less than “perfect” for him, but if I kept trying I’d probably get pretty close. Which is better than not having any idea where the mark is. In a world full of ambiguities, that felt simpler than freedom.

Is your love for yourself unconditional? Or do you just know where you fit? Were you just always told how it would be for you so your confidence exudes itself from all nooks and crannies of your predictable being?

Do you sometimes hear your own nose whistle while you lay in bed, breathing into a silent night? I remember when he first heard mine, “like a kitten meowing in darkness,” he chuckled. A comforting sound. He knew all along I imagine, that soon he’d be searching for someone more like you. A cat. Swift and sultry in her movements. I would only ever be a quiet whistle. But you are the lions growl, Dark-Haired Woman. Your silk, velvety mane trailing behind you on top of the water. I imagine him having sex with you, but stop myself before I pass over into oblivion and can no longer breathe.

Dark-Haired Woman, I’m in the weeds of not knowing if I’ll ever come back the same. I try and revive myself in the smiles and compliments of other men. But everything feels like oil droplets resting on the surface of a deep sea - no one can reach me. I don’t want to feel empty, I don’t want to feel numb, but these things are like hot baths to me now, and I sink my head deeper and deeper under the water of the hot spring until half of my eye opens upon the crisp mountain air, the other upon under water mysteries. From this vantage point, your lithe body is split in half - the funny way water bends and warps reality. He was like water, Dark-Haired Woman. And I frequently told him so. Steady, flowing, sure of himself -just like you.

~

It then occurs to me that you’re here with someone else. He edges out from the other side of the large rock structure and begins taking photos of you with his iPhone. He’s muscular, of medium build, taller than you for sure - less like water and more like solid earth. And he’s white.

He could be a friend, but the way you throw your head back in laughter when he gestures for you to “work it for the camera,” suggests he’s something more to you, Dark-Haired Woman. I wonder how much of a container you’ve sacrificed to stand here in all your glory, making love to the sunshine and paving your own way. Shattering everything that’s been expected of you.

I watch you wrap your hands around his strong neck, and I know now for sure that you are inseparable from him. Seeing you with him, I wonder if I’ve put myself in a darker, tighter cage than you’ve ever allowed. Scraping along the shadows - trying desperately to earn love while birds flew around me. But I couldn’t see them clearly enough to adopt them as my teachers.

Dark-haired Woman, you are everything I’ll never be, never mind the color of your skin or the confines of your culture. You break free, slashing every chain with a sharp knife - while I look for chains like a lost child. I wonder now if I was ever really in love. If what I had with him was ever really about us, or if it was all about me -finally coming home to the prison I seem doomed to look for in every traumatized corner of my pulsing head that needs answers or I’ll die. You’ve already died to all of it, Dark-Haired Woman. You’re the soul that comes out on the other side, the heart that breaks open and calls the whole world its home. Love is everywhere for you. There is no wrong person for you as you are an entity upon yourself - needing nothing to be any particular way in order for you to brighten all of the darkest places.

Maybe one day I will set myself free like you have.

Though for now, everything that lies ahead of me feels heavier than the largest boulder surrounding us. I feel dizzy with it and drop my head back underwater. I open my eyes to see your long, dark legs entwined with his paper white ones - the contrast sharp in the dewy haze of the underwater world. I blow some bubbles out of my nose and come back up for air.

Extracting myself from the echoey silence that only water can produce, a fierce squawking sound coming from above shocks me, and it is the first moment I realize how many other people are in the hot spring with us. Everyone is looking up at a massive flock of birds traversing the sky. I don’t look back to see if you’re looking up, but instead dip back underwater for as long as my breath will humanly hold, until a fire burns inside my lungs. The ear-shattering squawking ceases, and I am back in the ebbing silence. I see his face in my mind’s eye. And for the first time since he left me, I allow him to be there. I do not push him away, but instead, hold him there gently and pray into the silence that someday we’ll both be more like you.