Dear Lover,
Today I organized my drawer of memories. I found our movie tickets for Little Women; you called me silly when I cried at the end. I also found the playbill from "Hamilton", I think that was your first musical, wasn't it? I all but dragged you to see it, you thought it sounded stupid, I'm sure I only succeeded because it had so much mainstream attention. A week later you tried to introduce me to a musical I showed you the month before.
I found the watch you bought for me, the one I never wore You were always the best at living in the moment, staying grounded, feeling life as it happened. Maybe your connection to the real world was just too strong for you to reach beyond. Maybe that's why we were always too far apart. Maybe that's why you always called me a space cadet, I let my heart get pulled by the fictitious all together too often. I couldn't just walk out of a theater unchanged. You never changed. I transformed everyday.
I found dried flowers, the ones from our first date that you picked because you knew about colour theory and I just liked flowers. Maybe if I learned to be stubborn you wouldn't have walked past me so much. Maybe you would hear me or praise me like you used to do. Maybe if I just showed you all the things I've held on to and made you listen you would understand. If I taught myself to be stubborn could I teach you to be fanciful? Sentimental? I must be able to convince you of something, after all, if your heart is big enough to hold my entire self, surely it's big enough to hold my feelings too?
~~~
I was wrong.
My memories are gone, they burned with every tear of my paper and every clench of your fist. In the moment I thought it was strange that you had no room in your heart for my love but you had room enough to produce such anger. I think I realize now that you hadn't created that anger right then, you were already full of it. You couldn't hold me or my feelings or my love, or even your own feelings or love, because all you had was anger. You grew thorns in your heart to prick and cut anything gentle that tried to come in. You believed warmth was a weakness, you always did. I'm sorry I never understood before.
I understand now.
I'll leave you to your loathing.
