Another Letter I'll Never Send (#5)

 Dear ******,

It's been so long since I've seen you, I don't know if you'd recognize the person I've become.  Sometimes I wonder if you'd been here through the last few years, would I be where I am now?  Would the hurt have been less?  Or would it be more?

I saw you once at a baseball game.  And I kind of wanted to throw up.  And I kind of wanted to call your name.  Instead, I put on a baseball cap and stared at the floor until you were gone because I couldn't breathe.  So much of who I used to be was tied up in you.  So much of what I imagined my future would look like was molded around you.  It's strange, to me at least, to pull apart that future.  To strip all of my plans down and separate out the reality from the dream.  It's strange, even still, to have to rip you out like a weed.  It's odd to me that even now, you were in my life longer than you've been out.  That when I look at my collection of years on this earth, I've still spent more of them at your side than by myself.  But the clock is ticking and the time is counting down.  Soon, I'll be more of myself and less of you.  That's odd to me too.  That one day soon I'll have lived without you longer than I did with you.  It's a sadder thought than I'd imagined it might be.

I normally have a point to these letters but I fear I don't know what I'm trying to say but that never mattered to you.  You always let me talk without needing a big reason.  That's what we did for each other.  That's what best friends do.  Looking back on it now, I don't know that we ever stood a chance.  Things seemed poised to fall apart one way or another.  And while I miss the joy we had when we were together, I don't really miss you.  But I do miss having someone who knew me as well as you did.  I've tried in your absence to open up to other people, but the thing I had with you is something I don't think I'll ever get back.  It's something I don't think I can do again.  Not after losing you.  Not after growing up.

Sometimes, when I have really bad days, I think of you.  And I almost want to call.  Sometimes, when I have really good days, you cross my mind.  And I think of how you would've celebrated with me back then.  But the reality is that I don't have a number to call.  And I don't actually want one.  I guess my nostalgia just creeps in and stabs me every once in a while.  And I guess that's what I wonder about you: do you ever just think about me?  Even for a second?

I'm old enough now to know that we're both healthier when our worlds don't intersect.  I'm okay with that now.  It's just moments like these when I feel like I'm standing on a mountain looking down at where I've been and out at where I'm going that I think of you.  And I hope that even if it's only for a second, sometimes, you think of me too.

-M

My Favorite Phantom

I've been haunted by so many things, so many people, so many traumas.

I've never had a ghost that made me smile.

I've never had a ghost that made me hope to see it again.

And then there was you.

You and your smile that takes over my mind.

You and your eyes that seem to sparkle.

You and your kindness that shocks me into quiet awe.

And I find myself looking in the windows I pass, and the empty space, hoping to catch you standing there.

I find myself reaching out in my dreams and waking up to handfuls of air.

I find my chest aching at the impossibility of it all, of the timing, of the space, of the hope.

When I wake up with stinging eyes and a head that knows you're gone, I still whisper your name into the night in some dull hope that you might hear me.

I am haunted by hope that refuses to die, that promises me it's not the end.

I am haunted by hope that my favorite of all the ghosts will become tangible once more and catch me in this fall.

Wanting This

 I have never wanted something so gently and ardently as this.

When I open my eyes, it is the prayer on my lips as I wake.

When I close my eyes, it is the prayer on my lips as I slip into sleep.

And every moment in between is prayer after prayer, in every breath, in every thought, just for this.

I have never wanted something so simply, for no other reason than that my heart aches to be without.

My soul feels lost without it.

I have never wanted something so earnestly as this.

If I spend too long thinking about it, tears spring to my eyes fast and burning. 

I do not know what happens if I go too long without thinking about it because it's in my head always.

I have never wanted something so softly, so wholly, so deeply, so painfully in my life, and I have had an entire lifetime of wanting things.

But nothing like this.

Nothing so breathtaking, so impossible, so incandescent.

Nothing so terrifying, so transcendent, so delicate.

I have never wanted something so publicly and so privately all at once.

I want to scream about it.

I want to keep it secret.

I have never wanted anything like this in all my years of wanting.

I have never wanted anything like this.