Anonyblog

Letter to S.L.

It's 6pm in the afternoon and outside snow is coming down in flurries big enough to see the designs in each flake. They fall in waves, invisibly from the sky, marked by a rhythm too subtle for me to time. One lands on my window and as I stare at it I am reminded of fractals. I am reminded of you, cradling a book in your arms, and looking at the pictures of coastlines and mountains and rivers and snow. I put my hand up against the glass and pretend it's the picture you trace in that book, pretend your hand is what I am touching as the snow melts away into nothing. No one notices, so I keep pretending.

What can I say to you to make things right? What can I do so I would not have to pretend, not have to pretend it's you staring back at me through the window, pretend your head rests on my shoulder, your hair brushing lightly against my arm? What can I do to bring you back to me? Nothing. There is nothing I could say or do. And so I sit with a textbook in my arms, tracing the figures you traced, studying the words you studied.

When I think of you we'd always be in the rain. We'd be walking with our heads down as water soaks us to the bone, you in that black dress you like and uncomfortable heels that bunch your toes together toward the tip. We'd be talking about the future, our future, and our hands would be locked and swinging. I'd look up once in a while to see how you're holding up, but the rain wouldn't bother you. Nothing like that ever did. And your voice, your light melodious voice would carry above the dull thundering of the rain like a tuning fork vibrating for ever and ever into the sky. You told me once that our love was like a beautiful musical note sustained high and eternally in the air. Maybe not in those exact words, but I think that's what you meant. And that note had kept me going, a note I that knew had long since faded into ether.

I'm sorry, sweetie, for doing what I've done. I'm sorry I did not tell you more often when I had the chance just how much that I love you. I'm sorry I took your lovel for granted and threw it away when it's all I've ever wanted and needed. And I'm sorry I'll never see you again, that this letter is all that's left of me for you. But like the snow that melts on glass and the song that ends after the last note, I too go now into the ether, carrying the love I have for you with me.

I wish I could say I was doing the brave thing, the beautiful thing, and the romantic thing. like all of those tragic love stories where the two lovers take their own lives knowing they would never meet again. But I can't. I've never lied to you, and I don't plan on doing it now, even in death. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of living and never being loved by you again. I'm afraid what I carelessly discarded will never be found again, and I'm afraid all that I will have for the rest of my life is a poem and a photograph of you. I am sorry, but I couldn't live like that. I couldn't live without pretending, but I couldn't live and keep on pretending, so this was what I had to do.

Sometimes I'd go on for days without sleeping, go on and on until I'm exhausted with work and in the subways, during that lull between facing the world and facing myself, a ghost of you would sit down next to me and push the hair back on my face. You'd frown when you feel the moustache on my chin and look distastefully at me. Wake up, you'd say. Shave that ugly thing off. Do something with your life. You'd put your palm over my heart, and tell me you're still there, that you're always there. As long as your heart beats, you whisper in my ear, I'll always be here. And then I'd wake up and believe it for a while and shave. That's what you are to me, you know. You are my beating heart. You'll always be my beating heart.

And so now I say farewell to you, my beloved, my sweet and beautiful S. Even though you were never mine and I have passed beyond this world, know that I too will be in your heart for as long as it beats, and that if there is a god in this Universe who even remotely cares about giving us an afterlife, I would love you for the rest of eternity.

C. H.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This letter was written over and over again in the six months of my depression a couple of years ago, when S. H. and I were getting my affairs in order for my suicide. I wrote three letters to the three people I felt had the most impact in my life, and S. L., I felt, was the most important. These letters were supposed to be given to S. H., T. K., and S. L. shortly after my death, which never occurred. I came out of my depression after a long hard look at myself and moved on, but I've shown S.H. and T.K. the letters I wrote for them. S. L. is never to read this letter, mostly because after much soul searching I realized that I've already done too much to hurt her, and when I die she is not to know about it. It is better that she moves on with her life oblivious of my own, that she be happy and beautiful, with a loving man and many loving children. But here it is now, under the anonymity of the internet. My friends would totally bitch and moan if I posted this on my blog...

:-p

Posted by anonymous at December 12, 2005 12:36 PM