Musings of a Dove

Letter to the Other

I'm sorry I locked you away back then.

You didn't deserve that, but I needed you.

I needed you to be away from me. I needed you to keep your distance and give me room to breathe.

I couldn't smile through your tears, I couldn't laugh past your pain and I wanted to do those things so badly. I wanted the giggles and adventures and innocence of the teenage years. I wanted the mischief and romance and the feeling of seeing the world with fresh eyes.

I couldn't make myself face your obstacles or bear the burden of your wounded heart, I was weak and I treated you unfairly.

But I guess each of us had to find a way out of the dark.

The path I chose was cruel to you. I became indifferent to your trauma, I hid your wounds and never spoke of them. I stole your voice and kept you writhing silently in pain.

If someone would get a glimpse of you I would lie and pretend you didn't even exist. I was ashamed of you, of your predicament; after all, I had guessed you must have deserved some of it.

The gap between us widened over the years and we became more and more different: one soft spoken and timid, the other roaring angrily, one joyous and the other drenched in despair, one wielding beautiful lies and the other desperately and mutely clinging to honesty.

I remember being terrified as I heard you cry out for the first time.

How did you find your voice?

It was savage, raw and electric; it clawed at the Truth desperately slashing the darkness to uncover it.

I watched as the darkness and the silence tried to swallow you back up. I felt you struggle wildly, pushing back against the shadows holding you down, crushing your throat, threatening to take your voice again.

You lost the battle that day, and many more after, but you never again lost your voice.

I'll make sure you get to use it in these pages, because now I can't deny who you are or what I really am ...

I am just one Half.