This morning I woke up to the sound of white rain
shattering on my window.
The raindrops kept falling like the sweetest music
leaving tears on the glass,
which is what music does to me, most of the time,
but silence too. and rain.

I’m living with your letter and I’m growing a ritual in reading one line every morning,
or every time I think I’m forgetting you,
and I’m still not sure why I do that because there’s nothing more I wish for than to forget you.
To erase you from my daily habits and not see you in everything I do.
To not feel your hands on my skin
in the morning
and not hear your words
at night
but still I cling to what you gave me and taught me,
made me,
and I am still sorry.
So I woke up early to the sound of rain and bought an umbrella by the man at the corner next to the coffee shop.
But there was a homeless man
on the other side of the street
and he seemed sad too,
sadder than me,
so I gave him my umbrella because he didn’t have one and he smiled at me
with realness in his eyes
like you used to do
and I’d forgotten what that felt like,
looked like,
and it was nice to feel appreciated again,
for a while.

There was a lonely bartender last night
and I told him stories about the sound of train stations
where no train arrives,
but he must have thought me lonelier than him
because he kept saying “drinks on me”
and I would never argue with someone who spends his days pouring drinks to wandering souls, eager to find someone who might listen and might not care
but that’s not the point
and at least he seemed to enjoy the company
of me
because he smiled and answered and told me things too
and it was nice to just sit there and enjoy the simple pleasure of a conversation,
with someone I didn’t know, because I like the way strangers look at me.
They make me sure, of myself and other things, and I speak freer and louder and I don’t try to hide my excitement for life
or sadness because of love
and I haven’t made any mistakes yet, for them,
to them,
or in the life I wish to live.

Anyway,
I’m living with your letter and there was a lonely bartender last night and I might or might not have shown it to him
and he might or might not have thought it was fiction
because by the end of another drink he said he’d read my book
and if I knew I wouldn’t have told him
my stories
or showed him
my letter
because I wish for strangers and clean slates
and this ******* bartender knew every single piece of identity I ever had
and so I asked for another drink and he kept saying “drinks on me” and we didn’t stop until we both had forgotten about the lack of our strangeness
and I wish to find a way to strangeness even in the morning
when the spinning has stops.

But there is no strangeness.
Only the sound of white rain
playing sweet music on my window,
leaving tears on the glass,
which is what music does to me
most of the time
but silence too. and rain.
and I guess that’s enough for now.
Until the smell of you vanishes from my skin, that will be enough for now.

I don’t know,
it might just be the summer deceiving my senses, or all these new books I read, or all all these new words I learn, but I’m becoming someone I’m not yet familiar with
and it keeps my eyes open wide.
It might just be July and simple mornings
or the way he says my name
or the way I stay up late
waiting for a word or two, as a small reminder of being known,
but I am becoming someone I’m not yet familiar with, and it’s quite a wonderful feeling. It’s like the first day in a new city and every road is a new adventure, leading to something new. I catch myself in the mirror, making movements and thinking thoughts I never once did,
and it’s quite a different thing, the discovery of myself, from a different side of the sea. A different side of me,
for I’ve been lonely and angry, at myself and everyone else
but there was this day this spring, when all fell into place and I took a breath and let things go.
I took a breath and let it go
and suddenly the air was crisper
and my lungs lighter
and suddenly
there was him
saying my name
in different ways
and I catch myself throwing glances in the mirror,
seeing someone I don’t know
quite yet
but I can’t wait to,
and that is the start of everything.

I have hope in who I am becoming,
and that is the start of everything.

It could have been so beautiful.
The way I was too young for my age to run away 
but still did
because memories killed me like flashbacks,
shot straight in the dark
every night I passed that spot
on that street
like that night,
remembered so ******* well.
and it was disgusting and ugly,
his hands where they just should have not
been
but still,
it could have been so beautiful,
because it made me who I am.
Makes me who I am.

It could have been so beautiful.
The way our elbows always collide and not a single word was needed to make each other laugh. I laughed at your existence, I said, and you laughed even harder and that’s how we spent our time.
It could have been so beautiful,
the way the first hit felt good and something to deserve
because I’ve read every psychology book you can find on human behaviour and know for a fact that anger grows from caring
too much
and so it was a privilege to be in the war zone with someone like you.
How much you must have cared to hit that well
and that hard
and I remember saying thank you
and I’m sorry
at the same time
because what else is there to say. 

It could have been so beautiful.
The way I learned and got free and swore to never love another person 
ever again
and it could have been so beautiful
the way I actually did.
But winter came too soon 
and I grew smaller and we grew colder
and “I love you” got thrown around like habits
too rooted to give a ****
and it took a year
they say
for me to rid myself from habits rooted too deeply
and well
and still:
it could have been so beautiful.

There was a flower a found in the church after my grand mother’s funeral
this time
last year
and I took and kept it 
like a treasure hidden well
and I did not know why I stole it
and why I saw it or meant to keep it
but so I did
and now it’s August and I find myself sitting in a foreign land
again
drunk from too many thoughts and dreams
and memories hidden well
and there are certain moments when I can slowly work it out together.
Like dot to dot, tracing patterns on a map,
and it all makes sense but still absolutely not
because things could have been so beautiful
but just ended up being
not
but still 
they are,
because listen:

I am young and lost and know nothing about pain or love or anything in between
but what I do know is that I’ve seen things
others have not,
and felt things
others have not,
and still I sit alive in a foreign city
thinking about someone,
wishing that the someone was here
and if there’s anything others have taught me it is that I don’t need them to make myself feel okay
but still I think of him
and his hands
and how he says my name
and that’s all I need
to know that 
I will be okay, after all.
I will be okay, in spite of it all.
Because ugliness is a fact
but beauty is a virtue
and I’ve seen it.
I see it
and know it
and will try to keep it
treasured like a secret at the bottom of the sea
bottled up not to be taken for granted,
like
his hand in mine.

like his hand
in mine.

In spite of it all,
I am okay.

I said
”I love you so much it’s killing me”
and you kept saying sorry
so I stopped explaining
for it never made sense to you
what always did to me,
to let what you love
**** you
and never regret.

As Romeo is dying Juliet says
”I am willing to die to remain by your side”
and love was never a static place of rest
but the last second of euphoria
while throwing yourself out from a 20 store window
to be able to say
”I flew before I hit the ground”,
and it was glorious.

Don’t be sorry.
The fall was beautiful, dear.
The crash was beautiful.