ella,
first and foremost, i apologize wholeheartedly for the format of this lousy excuse for a letter because frankly, i can't think straight, thanks to you. you've left my thoughts as wrinkled as the last clean shirt you'd find crammed in the corners of your closet and what went on that night is messing me up i tell you.
how long has it been? two, three months? maybe it's been merely a week, but hell, it feels like an eternity. in all honesty, what you had said to me drove me to the edge of lunacy. or maybe it's what i said that has my sanity dwindling to nothing.
in case you don't remember, i'll refresh your memory. (unless you don't want to remember, but considering the important factor that you are not here to tell me whether or not you could fathom living this dreadful event once again, i shall continue).
you had told me the three words i, as a young and foolish boy, feared most.
you had belched out the words that paralyzed my soul.
"i love you."
and my mind was flooded with thousands upon thousands of impractical thoughts and, too shocked to reply, sputtered:
"i can't love. i don't love."
because i'd loved and i'd hurt and i did not want to feel that pain in my soul once more.
because i was drunk on the concept of nothingness and the everything of emptiness for so long. and i had forgotten how to love. i had forgotten how to feel.
because i'd loved and i'd hurt and i did not want to feel that again.
and this pulled a trigger, lit a fuse, dropped the bomb somewhere inside the deep corners of your mind and you exploded, screaming that nothing i'd ever said to you was true and that i was an emotionless drone.
which was half true; i have no emotions.
and since that you spoke those words the feeling of possible truth suffocated by body. i was absorbed in the possibility of me breaking your heart with lies that caused you to love me.
the guilt polluted the blood pumped into my veins and i was spiraling out of control with clouded thoughts of the definition of love and what could have possibly driven you to love a shattered soul such as myself.
these thoughts lead to deeper thoughts and before i knew it, i was engulfed in these ideas that surrounded my conscience.
and frankly, my dearest elizabeth, the more i understood, the more i realized i couldn't understand, because the word love is unimaginably deep.
when the word is shot out into the air, society allows us to believe that the only kind of love is that between two people. hugs and kisses and touches and lust. it's deeper.
love is expandable to the four corners of the earth. it scrapes the bottom of the ocean and goes deep into the core of the earth. and the more i thought about it, the more my head throbbed.
however, dull pain soon cast it's goodbyes and i was left with the thought that maybe the crumbled pieces of my soul could possibly, just maybe be able to produce an ounce of love.
naturally, i made a list. i love white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies, i love my younger sister, my mother (even when she's had one too many drinks), fruit roll ups, roller coasters, the smell of Lowe's or Home Depot, puppies.
not too long after determining these things, i found myself thinking about the one and only, you.
and blotted in runny black ink along the page was: the way elizabeth jade parker's auburn curls bounce while she walks, when elizabeth jade parker flashes me her dimples when her mouth moves the slightest, how elizabeth jade parker smells like freesias after a rainstorm, how much elizabeth jade parker cares about plants and kittens, elizabeth jade parker's eyes, the taste of cherries that stains elizabeth jade parker's lips, elizabeth jade parker's freckles, elizabeth jade parker's three piercings on her right ear, elizabeth jade parker's floaty laughter, elizabeth jade parker, elizabeth jade parker, elizabeth jade parker.
and crammed into the very last corner of the page was "i am in love with elizabeth jade parker."
yours always,
jonah
