Letters I'll Never Send You

Dear John (2)

Dear John,

I was always a very self oriented girl. I lived in the stories I made in my head, and often, I wrote them down for people to read. I lived in my small friend circle that I love and trusted. I lived in my dedication to my career, because I couldn't recognise myself myself without academic validation. I lived in the hopelessly romantic books I read and the soft and slow music I listened to. I lived in a small world...

...until I met you.

You changed me, right from the moment you walked in my life.

And in the beginning, I liked the change.

I liked not having to read about love in books because the kind of love that I had only written about was right in front of me.

I liked not writing any more to create a distraction from how tough my world could be. You were my distraction from reality.

I liked listening to your music.

I liked watching shows you recommended.

I liked telling you about my whereabouts and introducing you to my friends, making you a part of my world because it had started revolving around you.

I liked the slow and soft changes.

I fell too fast, and I fell too deep.

Now, I don't listen to music when I shower any more.

I stopped writing a long time back because how does one write about love when they don't believe in it any more?

Don't take me wrong. I didn't stop believing in love because you broke my heart. A broken heart is proof that there is love. As they say, what is grief if not love persevering?

I stopped believing in love because after how much I gave you, it still wasn't enough. I wasn't enough.

Often, you took my happiness from me and held it as a gunpoint to my head waiting to shoot at one small mistake.

That time when I went partying with my friends and you accused me of cheating on you just because I had a drink. I stopped enjoying parties.

That time I went out for a drive with my father and you wouldn't believe where I was till I cried and had an anxiety attack.

That time when I called you thirty times a day and you answered three and maybe returned two.

That time I found out you were going out with your friends when you were below another girl's house picking her up for dinner.

That time I started refusing all and any plans with my friends by the fear that you'd begin fighting me the second I enter home and I'd wish I never left home in the first place.

You broke me, John. Piece by piece.

I wasn't perfect. I made mistakes. But I paid too big a price any person should.

I got misery disguised as love, and I accepted it for what it was.

I still do.

I don't think I know what happiness is any more. Or who I have become.

You say, I saved you from your darkest time.

Who's going to save me from you?