raw

To the One,

A jellyfish can sting without a brain. Now imagine a young woman, give her runway looks, make her acutely conscious, and add a splash of ambivalence. Then fall in love with her, and tell me how it feels when she stings. Scour the dictionary to find the words that can articulate the inevitable despair of not having a vinegar remedy for heartache.

I’m referring to you. You fuck me up. Out of respect for you, I will keep you obscure, but you know who are you are. If I cannot scream your name off of a mountaintop, then I damn well won't write it here. I have to settle for spilling the fragments of you in every single word. Look at me…settling. My poetry is littered with your essence. I've cut my veins with letter openers and dipped my calligraphy pen in blood to write heartfelt letters I'll never show you. Even if you read them, nothing would be different.

But you changed me. For the first time in my life, I felt seen. The way fire must have felt when it was discovered. You noticed the parts of me that I kept hidden with gentle prodding. With a fire poker, you nudged my heart and asked, "is this thing still alive?" Between you and me, I was one beat away from calling it quits, but you were my revival. You brought sunlight to my grave. I'm convinced I was fated to love you. In fact, I'd bet the house on it.

You were gone as fast as you came, but in between that, we lived on cloud nine. I can recall every moment I spent with you, and my senses can still be triggered by your memory. There were days I wished I could turn the down the volume of your voice in my head, but nowadays I doze off to your city noises and sirens. I never felt more alive than when you'd say my name, the safety blanket you wrapped me in by acknowledging my existence. But cloud nine was a short-term lease, and you needed a more stable residence. Now you live in my head, rent-free, when I should be charging you the price of a high-rise. I hope you enjoy the view of the skyline. The dopamine backdrop of faded romance and decadent contentment.

I chuckle that your favorite flower is a bleeding heart, as I scribe this to you with the same condition. I cannot get over how you left and never looked back, but for some masochistic reason, I respect you for it. You could spit in my coffee and I'd thank you for cooling it down. I’d take a bullet for you if I could guarantee my last words would be your name. Actually, I would die for you no matter what. You are more vital to my mornings than a sunrise. If I no longer woke to thoughts of you before the daylight broke, I’d think the world was ending.

My brain is warped because of you and I'm grateful for it. My mind is a rain-soaked pine drawer filled with words I can no longer open myself to tell you. I used to love a lot of things. Thunderstorms, green, uninterrupted sleep. But now, I love nothing but you. If you are not the predicate to that sentence, I am riddled with guilt.

Three years have vanished from my life without so much as a glimpse of you. There's an incessantly thumping part of me that believes you prefer it that way. Never again will I get to feel the way I did when I was with you. I'll be the first to admit I'm jaded, the scorn I swallow like shards that the world actually looks quite dull when it isn't rose-colored. Never again will I look for love when I know the only place I could find it in was you. I truly believe you are God’s greatest creation.

I want to express my utmost gratitude towards you. I'm appreciative for the way you gently placed your final puzzle piece into my heart before you disassembled it back into the box. How you helped my head get lost in the clouds before you slammed me back to Earth.

I now believe self-discovery is impossible without being broken as a catalyst. My depth of understanding has increased tenfold. I learned that happiness has a hierarchy. I understand widows and widowers who never remarry. I empathize with amputees who report their phantom pain. I learned why hope remained in Pandora’s box. The same way vegetables become fragrant when adding heat to them, my soul could not have come alive without yours to awaken it.

If you ever asked me what I was most proud of about myself since you last saw me, I’d tell you it is my resilience. You were not there for me when I hit rock bottom. Actually, I could argue that I’m still clawing my way out. But I found a way to make it cozy. There’s no L-shaped couch like we always talked about, but I made a futon out of your breadcrumbs and eggshells. The artwork isn’t Monet or Rembrandt, but I drew the Mona Lisa with nothing but colored chalk and your initials. The stars are prettier the farther away you see them, and God can whisper through the cracks of sidewalks. He asked me why I prayed more for you than peace on Earth and I showed Him why that was a silly question.

If you ever stumble upon this letter, I need you to know that I still love you. Thank you for showing me that love is the most addictive drug. That vulnerability is prettier than any silver armor. That there’s beauty in being different. Should you ever look for me, I’m still walking north while the rest of the flock stampedes south. And if the love is real, I’ll see you again.

I need you,

D