Letters in the Hypothetical
I got your last message this morning. You ask if I miss you. I wouldn't know. I've never really missed anyone before. I've never cared enough. If missing you is a gaping chasm in the middle of my chest, wanting to fly to where you are, and feeling miserable all the time, then yes, I miss you. I hope you are missing me. You didn't exactly say straight out before, and I'm trying not to care, but I do- I care more than I'd ever let on. You said you can't stop thinking of me, well I know the feeling. You're in every mirror, every pair of eyes, every laugh I hear. I think of you first thing in the morning and hate you last thing at night because you're not with me. I don't love you because I don't know what love is. All I know is that I need you more than anything else and you're not here, and it has to be this way for now. In a few days I'm heading further up the east coast. And in the golden light spilling from a New York sunset, I know I'll be imagining you again.
You'd love the countryside- you should be there instead of me. Or with me. Do not think that now you are not here I will be flirting up every available native I see. No one but you has ever made me care. I hate that you can do that to me still, that I can't forget those laughing hazel eyes. I know I was ever mercurial, ever-changing. The white-hot streak of lightning in a stormy sky that suddenly changed to a warm gentle rain, and back again to storm. But I remember your joy in that, your excitement. The novelty I guess. Your own nature was more constant and even-tempered, though almost dormant, as if needing just a slight outside spark to stir you into roaring life. And I loved being that for you, stirring such depths and heights of feeling in you. But you inspired the spark & flame that was me, my essence- and you're the rock that was warmed yet contained the fire, remaining unburned. For me, you were the solid earth, strong and re-assuring, real, grounding the lightning, drinking in the rain and in turn blossoming. Oh how you blossomed… But our differences balanced, enhanced and centered us. Shining verdant jungle meets stunning mahogany trees and rich fertile earth.
I'd never felt a greater sense of wanting to belong with someone than I felt with you. So it was a beginning maybe, this balance- this understanding that grew between us, of something I wanted deeply but feared. I'm still trying to grasp the magnanimity of it. Winter is coming at last, and hopefully taking with it the stench of death. The grounds are littered with rotting leaves, their skeletons turning to dust as the winds howl through the wood. The house is so cold and empty, I can hardly bear it. The place is becoming like a prison. Hell, my own flesh is becoming a prison when all I want to do is climb out and let my spirit soar to where you are, where my heart lies. The halls have lost all the warmth and beauty I'd once beheld in my innocence and youth. Cobwebs amass like venomous nests and dust settles on anything stationary for more than a moment. I hate it here. The colors are all fading to nothingness; the silver has lost its gleam and become as tarnished as my name. I have nothing left here and if I stay much longer I'll be reduced to a ghost of myself. A shadow. Isn't that what you once wanted? Wished I wouldn't walk around so freely and unabashedly because you hated the thought? Had to have hated me for a moment, I'm sure. I once hated you. Hated that you made me feel.
I trained myself in apathy and you broke that, didn't you? Well now I'm becoming a shadow and you're not here to see it. You're not here at all. I want you so much I can hardly breathe, and I spend hours writing these pathetic fake letters to you because the silence here is so oppressive and I feel trapped in the lunacy of my own mind. There is no peace in a prison, and this one is turning me mad. I cannot see you, and talking to you fells me because I can't touch you, but I can picture you reading my words. The trees whisper your name malevolently as I pass them. The world won't let me forget you. You are etched upon me, and how I adore you for that. This may be the last thing I write until I am returned, unless I suddenly fancy a really long trip- for all this is driving me insane and any more thoughts will send me speeding off into the night, cross-country. Know that I think of you, and that it hurts. Take whatever grim satisfaction in that you please.
Yours, always yours,
Elisabeth.