Your Love Has Ruined Me

Dear Mother Dearest,

Ever since the day I was born have I felt sheltered in your unadulterated, loving embrace and sheltering eye. You arms remained forever ready to hold me, rocking me gently with eyes closed, even to this very day, and your lips were ever ready to kiss the slightest wound I received in the course of daily activities, childhood or otherwise. Never did you let me wander too far from your sight, and your diligence in keeping me from endeavors you deemed too dangerous for me, or even beneath me, was the stuff of local legends.

Such was your love and appreciation for me, that, to you, nothing, and no one was ever good enough for me. No friend, no girl, no teacher. No father...I began at a young age to think of myself as some sort of prince held secret high in the tower of a castle, too precious and exquisite to experience the failures and mistakes that come with having the smallest bit of freedom.

Because of this, I feel I never truly grew, never faced the consequences of any wrong actions I actually managed to accomplish under your ever-watchful observation. My few mistakes and transgressions were inevitable blamed on a backward and uncaring world. To you, the world and it's inhabitants could never understand me, and how special I truly was...

I am sure you have heard the phrase "Spare the rod and spoil the child?" Oh, how you have spoiled me, dearest mother, and now I am become good for very little at all. As it stands now, even the though of venturing outside these walls and into the world fills me with fear and trepidation, with terror, and the idea of ever finding love other than yours seems as distant as the other side of the moon...and a small part of me thinks I would ultimately be unsatisfied with any woman I did find who would be willing to partner themselves with a man-no, a grown boy-a man-boy as twisted in perspective as I am. Because they wouldn't be you.

Your sweet, sweet love has ruined me, dearest mother, and now I fear I am trapped in this castle tower of your making, and I am afraid there is no escape for me now, for I am grown too old.

I wish you had not of told me that you would always be there for me. I wish you would not have said that no one else in the world would care for me you as you did; I would have preferred to find that out on my own. I wish you had let me had a father, someone to teach to me to hurt the right way and fight the right way, and if necessary, to hate the right way, and, if need be, to kill the right way.

I doubt you will ever see this letter. What real good would come of you reading it? Would it crush you, knowing I feel this way? Would it cause these castle walls you have built around the two of us to come crashing down around us like gigantic hailstones from the most magnificent of storm clouds? I am almost inclined to leave it at your bedroom door, and then make my escape, for the thought of you reading it almost fills me with a panicky sort of glee...

But I will not. Fear has become the essence of my existence now. Fear of the world, fear of what reading this letter would do to you, fear of living, fear of what I am become...fear of being separated from your love. But when you pull me into your embrace, and your eyes close, and mine as well, and you gently rock me...for just the sweetest of moments...that fear disappears.

Your Beloved Son