Dear Love

Hey, it's me Anna.

I'm sure you already know that, but I want to make sure that you know my name, the way I know yours. We go way back, you and I, Love. This may be my first time writing to you, but this isn't my first time calling on you.

I've heard about you my entire life, but until recently, I never truly got to know you. So many of us try to find you in stranger's faces. Their lips, their fingers brushing against ours, mouths connecting, attempt to get us closer to you, but to no avail.

When I was young, I looked for you in the face of my mother, but only sometimes you were there. I looked around to my peers, but all I found were more blank faces trying to find you.

Everyone single person around me was seeking you, finding you, marrying you, losing you, despising you, longing for you. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you've heard this before, Love.

So, I continued my search.

A boy once told me about you, he hid behind your face to tell me that he had found you and wanted to share a piece of you with me. I should have known that you only wear one face. But, I didn't. And no matter how many times he touched me, you never appeared, Love.

As your friend time passed, I grew angry with you for letting so many people hide behind you, using your name in vain and I began to crave your opposite. I no longer trusted that you would find me some day, and honestly love, I wasn't even sure you existed. I made friends with a blond boy with green eyes and I thought for a second that maybe you were inside of him. The more I listened to his claim to know you, the less I tried to hide from you, but I wasn't sure which version of you I wanted to find in him, friendship, companionship, intimacy? Why do you wear so many faces, Love?

Then when I watched my best friend try to find you in the beds of so many. I sat, with my arms around her shaking body, as she cried over you. You burned her badly, Love. Whether it was you or that older boy who had no right to be touching her, you get the blame, Love, because you never came to save her.

To get over you, we watched people on screens try to imitate you and we laughed and cried, and eventually she began to trust you again, to crave you. I warned her to stay away from you, I told her to be careful, but she wouldn't listen, Love. But lucky for her, your friend Time was there to help her again.

I gave up searching for you until one day, a boy with dark skin and a light heart whispered that he knew you. He told me he could help me find you, but I wasn't as quick to fall for his words as I had been when I first began to look for you.

He told me so many things, Love. He told me that you were worth the wait, and that I was worth the wait. I almost felt you then, but you slipped away before I could reach you. He was nothing like the rest of the boys who used the illusion of you to break off tiny pieces of me. I still wasn't falling for it, or for you, just yet.

It wasn't until my dark and light boy turned into a man and I was finally ready to ask him where you were. You know what happened, Love? He led me to a mirror, gently took me by the shoulders and turned me around to face you. 

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I tag @fallondemornay, @kfxinfinity, and @donotmicrowave to write a letter to love! I love the three of you and I know you all have so much to say to love, I would be honored if you would share it with us. I encourage all of you to write your own letter to love, I'm sure you have a lot to share with Love and I can't wait to read your words.

Submit your own stories and tag them with #CollateralBeauty or share them here: https://www.wattpad.com/339395245-collateral-beauty-a-collection-of-short-stories