Excerpt from a letter that now almost seems like it was written in a past life.
I’ll miss your stories. I’ll miss fighting with you.
I’ll miss your deep voice. I’ll miss knowing you.
I’ll miss hearing your smile through the phone. I’ll miss you calling me on your lunch break.
I’ll miss falling asleep to your text messages. I’ll miss waking up to your text messages.
I will miss everything so fucking much.
God, it’s really over.
My heart is so heavy.
It is so so tired.
–S.
All I really know is that we were on the phone and he told me that he wanted to tell me a story.
I was happy because I knew in that moment that he could have chosen to be on the phone with anyone, but he chose me.
And there I am listening to a story about a man with only one thumb.
But he is laughing and I am not.
He says, ‘I guess you just had to be there.’
It’s not that. I am not laughing because a big part of me is sad. I’m sad because I am thinking and preparing for a moment a million moments from now – when he doesn’t tell me these stories.
–S.
2014.
I’m driving home.
It’s 2:32 in the morning.
It’s chilly in Texas now.
More late at night than during any other time of the day.
I wonder what the weather is like where you are. I turn the radio on, and I hear Justin Timberlake taking back the night.
I wonder what you’re listening to nowadays. Are you playing your piano?
I turn the radio off. I don’t want to take back this night. It’s beautiful. I want to burn it into my memory forever. It’s truly been special and I haven’t done anything special in quite some time. When I am wearing my faux leather black boots, I feel like I can do anything. I wore them tonight. If we still spoke, you’d know about them. I would have sent you a picture. I was dressed in all black with touches of gold jewelry. I felt sexy and mysterious all wrapped into one with a ribbon on it.
I laughed a lot tonight. Real laughter. I meant all of it.
And there was this moment when I was driving home, and the air was blowing aggressively against my face, that I missed you.
I really really missed you.
I wondered if you were at work maybe thinking of me too.
I wanted you to wrap your words around me and bring me warmth the rest of the car ride home.
I wanted you to lay me down on my pillow and sing me to sleep.
Your deep low timbre.
I would do anything to hear your smile – even over the telephone.
I don’t even need to see it, it would be enough.
Just to know that it was my smile. For me. Because of me.
If it’s cold where you are, I wish you warmth.
I wish you the sun.
–S.
I remember those faux leather black boots. I wore them into another love story. They were my favorite boots to dance in downtown. Eventually – one of them started coming apart and I would use black tape to keep it together. I was wearing them in dimly lit bars and clubs, but also didn’t give a fuck if anyone noticed the tape.
I loved those black boots. I LIVED in those black boots.
RIP Faux Leather Black Boots.
It’s a party – until it isn’t.
He loves you -until he doesn’t.
We are – until we aren’t.
It was – until it wasn’t.
–S.
You’re a memory,
my favorite reverie,
I remember we,
were love.
–S.
I loved you at your worst.
At mine, you cowered.
Coward.
–S.
Missing you,
wishing you,
nevermind.
Missing you,
wishing you,
were mine.
Nevermind.
–S.
I want you to know that the nights we spent with outfits too short for our own good, dried up alcohol on our bodies from random strangers stumbling around the bar, sweaty hair, and cigarette smelling clothes are nights that I will never forget.
On those nights – we owned the town.
Two girls holding hands walking barefoot with their heels in their hands starting up at the skyscrapers of the city.
The whole city was lit up with neon signs, the moon, and the stars.
Nothing mattered on those nights.
Not whose heart was broken.
Not what college paper was waiting to be written.
Not what family or friend drama was developing.
Not that there was a work shift coming in the morning.
–S.
An excerpt from a letter that I wrote years ago to my then best-friend who went into the Air Force.
I asked your mom for your address a week ago, and then nothing. Because a part of me doesn’t know what to say to you. I don’t want to say anything. Another part of me wants to tell you everything that has happened since I turned twenty-three. I want to be your friend.
For a really long time now, probably ever since you left, I’ve been angry with you. I think we’ve done a shit job of keeping our friendship alive. I know that I’ve been a shitty friend, holding on by a thread.
I’m a hard person to love. You’re a hard person to love too.
But I also know that you’re currently doing one of the hardest things you’ve ever done in your life.
I know that you’re scared. I know that you are lonely. I know that you are determined, and that you have that mean mug on. That someone forces you to be a morning person every single day. I know that you miss downloading music. I know that you want to watch One Tree Hill. I know these things. I know that you would never admit them. I know that for even five minutes, it probably feels good to hear from an old friend.
I told my cousin that I didn’t feel very close to you, and that I didn’t know the words to say. She said to just talk. About life. To be a friend – because we all need a friend. We all just want to talk and know that someone cares. Even us, those people who have spent a lifetime shutting everyone out. Because no one measures up, right? Wrong.
It turns out that we are not supposed to measure up to anything. We are just supposed to be human.
–S.
2014.
For a while there, I didn’t listen to any music that had the piano in it.
And that’s my favorite kind of music.
I would imagine your long fingers hitting the keys and all of the people that were there to witness your song.
All of the girls probably swooning over your musical abilities.
I hated them, you know. I hated you.
But as I am writing this – a piano is serenading me.
And you no longer have that hold.
See,
you don’t get to take music.
You don’t get to take real love away from me.
You don’t get pianos and the sounds they make.
You don’t get any hate.
Even though it never feels like it, I know that there is life after heartbreak.
Music still plays.
And the sound of letting go is the most beautiful note I’ve ever heard.
–S.
The Messy Middle 🖤 