Dear You,

I have decided, with the absence of severe, longwinded contemplation, to revisit the concept of romance; Eros and his mother must have rediscovered monotony in their divine lives, and in lieu of their resurfacing boredom have chosen me as their fated subject to lay the tortures of futile, loveless affections on. I must tell you that I am not honored at all by the position they have assigned m e, for what title have they given me save for the role of toy or puppet? Venus pulls my strings and means to convey me as foolish before you, as so undeserving of your flawless ability to captivate the admirations emitted from so many loving gazes trained at your figure and face; and whilst the Goddess of Love dangles me like a boneless, clumsy dolt incapable of coherent speech in your presence, her impish son flings arrow after arrow straight into my rapidly beating heart. Funny how you may return an acknowledging glance at me and smile, blind to the fact that I am merely being teased and assaulted by the very charms your pure, moist breath expels. However, the visual exchange between you and I is never extended beyond a brief second. The enlightening glint in your eyes flees when met with the dark and dull orbs that wish to hide behind my heavy, fluttering eyelids. The wish that I wish the moment you look at me is terminated every time you veer your head to blink at something or someone else. Perhaps a fairer damsel with a lighter laugh and a brighter smile demands your attention, and you would be wise to go to her like a fumbling herald, nervously equipped to do her bidding to earn but one tender word of blossoming ardor from her.

If only you could know that I would gladly praise your every action, your every feat. Nothing you would do would be unworthy of my congratulations, but then such excessive acclaim may only vex you, for it may instill the thought that the glory I slather upon you is false. But, no! You must never think that of me, if you even think of me at all. Love, in its purest form, is honest. Cupid may enjoy sticking arrows into my chest but he forbids me to lie. I would never lie to you. Even if your passivity towards me, your disinterest in me as a friend let alone a suitor, compels me to curse you with all the passion I once held in your favor, I still would not dare lie to you. I would rather reveal my ephemeral frustration and anger bare to you rather than grace you with a Pan American smile that hides my tumultuous emotions from your view. For, as I have stated already, Love, in its purest form, is honest. Whether my love is requited or not is not the matter at hand. If a strong fondness exists, be it singular or mutual, then I will not try to convince you that I am more or less than what I appear. Your understanding of me is not helped, and I only wound my own perception of myself if I have the gall to mask truth.

So how then can I win your affections? Is this feeling that swells in the restrictive caverns of my heart simply a fragment of a larger, more powerful brunt that I have yet to witness? Is it all just a manifestation of the games Aphrodite and Cupid play to taunt helpless human victims with? Or can it possibly be more than what anyone can imagine it to be? Is it worth fussing over, mulling over, weeping over, dreaming over? If such an emotion was meant to be regarded as simple to remove, then why can I not just pluck it out of my heart along with the arrows of Aphrodite's love child? Why does such a sentiment continue to exist, pressing its identity firmly into my mind with no chance of ever being removed from the comfortable spot in my brain where it has embedded itself? This feeling... is it borne from the celestial souls of the gods who manipulate me? And if it is, can this feeling then be divine? Holy? But how can such a heavenly sensation be both a nuisance and a gift to the naïveté and desperations of an unholy girl? Who am I to receive such graces? Who am I to even deserve to be blessed with sight so that I may see your countenance, the very same countenance that holds no warmth, no sincere attachment, to me when it decides on a whim to glimpse at my pitiful self?

Or perhaps this potent passion is not godly at all. Perhaps it is an earthly creation, borne not from the hands of gods but from the breath of a human individual. You. Are you the commander of this feeling that sails through my sea of emotions? Does such a sentiment exist only because you exist alongside it and that were you to die, were the characteristics of your being that attract me to you die, would the love I have for you perish as well? A part of me cannot help but desire such an event to occur. My achy troubles would then diminish, and I would no longer be fettered to the fruitless appeal that radiates from the core of your soul. I would be free of your charms, inveigled by your magnetic allure no longer, and the thoughts of inadequacy, insignificance and loneliness would no longer abide in my mind. I could begin anew. Tabula rasa.

But then it would strike me that you will not be the only one. Another will follow, and I will fall back into the traps laid by Venus and Cupid, and they will continue to laugh at me when I cannot decide if I want to remain a prisoner to my finite, romantic aspirations, or to be liberated from such hurtful torments. It makes me wonder whether there will ever be an end to this cycle. Can this feeling that I have for you ever die? No, I'm afraid it will never be killed. You cannot murder a concept like this. It is invincible, for even if you die, love, the feeling cannot fade—it will not fade. Unbeknownst to you, you created something magnificent and undying, but to discover what it is you have made, you must look at me, for such a creation dwells within me. Shall you look upon the horror of that which you gave life? Shall you look at me and understand what you unknowingly fabricated? Or will you decide to die on me while leaving this feeling you forced me to house to remain a mystery only the Goddess of Love can comprehend?

Love,
Me