The Letter I will never send

Dear you,

I have dreaded writing this letter, as much as I have daydreamed about you, for the past years. However, it is perhaps crazy to fear the writing of this letter because I know you will never see it, as you have no idea that I would even write it.

So here I am tonight because for sure it had to be written at night, when the stars are barely seen, hidden behind the clouds of tomorrow’s weather. I do love those clouds, to be honest, as they are the promise of a rainy day, one that will make the artist, the poet inside me, rise for a few hours and disappear when the sun comes out again. But tonight, I do not want to talk about the sun; I do not want to think about him, for it was never as bright as my memories of you. It perhaps made me think of you, once or twice, but not as much as the stars.

Have you ever thought about how, when watching the stars at night, you are watching the past, glistening right before your eyes? It’s crazy, isn’t it? Their light takes so much time to fly through the universe, to brighten the darkness of our lives, that by the time you watch them, they’ve probably already disappeared. And yet, here they are, warming your soul with this indescribable feeling. It makes your mind and heart levitate and makes you forget time itself, at least for a few minutes. I used to feel the same way about you. And years have gone by. The thought of you became this unconscious presence in the back of my mind. Sometimes, I would let it in, and I would smile to myself, not even fearing the sight of people watching me. I would simply smile, thinking about how you once smiled when looking at me. Sometimes, I would not even realise that I had left that door open, slightly enough for you to be present in some of my choices. So I would fall in love with guys who would compete with the thought of you. They never knew it, just as much as I didn’t want to admit it. But I would fall in love, either way, secretly wishing they were you.

But years have gone by, just as they all did, but not you. It is perhaps the reason why you will never read this letter. Maybe you’ll see it one day, and quickly realise that it is, it has always been, about you. But I’ll pretend a little longer that you’ll never read this. Makes me feel better, to be completely honest. I love you and what we have too much to ever risk it, by admitting that: You’re the one I’ll always want to have, even for a minute, all the while knowing that I will never have you.

I have made peace with this, you know. But, sometimes, it comes back, like the gentle breeze of a summer night on a beach, somewhere in the south of France. Precise, isn’t it? Well, maybe because of one thing you never knew about me: I started to write poetry on that very night. At that time, I only knew the surface level of this urge to start writing poetry. I was infatuated with this man, the one that appeared out of nowhere and made me feel wanted and desired, but now I know why I really started poetry. It was never about him. Although I have told him so, it never was. He was not you, and although I have loved him, part of me wanted him to be you. Do not get me wrong, I never imagined you when I was alone with him. I was always entirely with him, or not quite wholly, but that is a story for another day. What I want to say is: at that time, If I was to choose between having him and having just a couple of minutes with you, I would have not hesitated, not for a second. It would have been you. It was always about you.

And yet, tonight, while writing this letter I will never send, I find myself sharing tears, bitter from the realisation that perhaps I have never loved you. Maybe I have loved the image of you, the combination of memories, of the longing, the desire that never was fulfilled. But never really you. I am no fool, so I understood that it would never happen. And perhaps you’ve never thought of me that way, or maybe you did once or twice. We both know you did. But it never stayed with you, and it is alright. So I am not mad, I am not disappointed, I am actually quite happy.

I have written many poems about you to fully comprehend my feelings and let them live on paper and not in my heart any more. They are proof of the depth of love I can hold in my heart and my whole being. But I also dared to write the last poem of my future collection.

Although you’ll never listen

I will tell you nonetheless

The last promise

From a book I am to achieve

The Last Letter I’ll never send

I am not in love

For I believe I never was

But my heart somehow

Believed it was

I am not in love

For I see you as you are

An idea

A promise

I once made to myself

But I am not in love

Not with you

But I would like to say

One more time

One last time

Thank you.

So Dear you,

I hope this letter never finds you. I hope you live your life unaware of how you have created an artist in me. I hope we keep on having this special bond. I wish I’ll never see you again, for I am too afraid it will break what took so many years to build. But, still, most of all, I hope one day I will get the chance to hug you one more time and say thank you.

With all my love,

Always,

B.