A Tribute to Him: Letter Nº5

I write to anonymous people and that allows me to be as genuine as I want to. I can always add another line and I can always take back something I wrote. given this freedom I have never used it for a way to be cruel to people; for that is not who I am and that is not my purpose and objective of writing these at all. while writing my letters I have never used honesty as an excuse to be brutally cruel; no matter how painfully true that statement might be. I’m not trying to put salt on any wounds. I might be an only child but I would never be spoiled enough to do that.

don’t think you realize what it meant when I cried while you stood tall in front of me as I was sitting down on your mattress.

I did not worry if I would ever find such love like yours. I did not worry if I would ever meet someone with the shape of your eyes or someone who plays guitar like you do. I did not worry about the feelings we had. I did not think of it as a perfectionist like you did. I am a mediator and I like the grey parts of life.

When I cried, I was sad because I knew it was supposed to end. I was sad because good or bad we weren’t supposed to hold on to it. It ached me to see how evidently self aware I was and how I was letting it pass by my eyes. I felt like I was taking you for granted. I told you repeatedly to talk to me. communicate what’s happening in your head. you would brush it off with “I don’t know” and I wouldn’t push you further. We still do the same thing.

Because of you I developed so many things inside, unplanned and now that I’m looking back, unwanted.

I keep going back to small details. I have no doubt you don’t remember like I do. I continuously tell myself to throw everything out. You and your friends, our pictures and videos and everything there is. But this has been my dilemma with people I eventually stop talking to; our time wasn’t just yours, it was mine too. Why should I throw a part of myself out of sight? Who would be this ungrateful to throw their time away because someone else thought it wasn’t of worth?

I don’t write to you out of remorse and regret; not even sadness or melancholy. I write to you out of the respect I have for what I have felt months ago, what I’m feeling now and what I will be feeling for the next couple of weeks, until of course my feelings would dry out of anger and the unavoidable oblivion would creep in with the pictures of your face and mine next to each other.

Today I write this in full confidence that all of my friends and yours would know whose letter this is. The exposure makes me uncomfortable but I can’t hide what has been so obvious to everyone. I wonder how open you are with who you are. I wonder if others know how you truly felt about me. I don’t think they do. I didn’t either.

I am now listening to haikuesque by bibio and I feel calm after everything that I have felt the last few weeks but I want you to know something:

nevertheless, I love what we shared and keep on sharing of the world together; our city and the streets, a few friends maybe, a picture that you used to keep on your shelf, our spontaneous 10th date trip and our unresolved feelings forever isolated in the words we never say and instead they are spilled all over my keyboard.

I didn’t think this would be the letter I would write for you and how bittersweet is it for me to end the letter with ‘love -Ghazal’ but I guess I need to be frank. I will always be the heavier side of the scale and that is just who I am. and I can’t act otherwise.

[not in] love.

-Ghazal