Dear Jay.

I know your name is not really Jay, but at the moment I can't remember what it is. Somewhere between the fire in my throat, the spinning top in my skull, the sixth bottle of beer, I've forgotten.

I'm sorry.

What I want to say is, don't expect this to be poetic. I've written tons of letters, I think most of them are merely corny **** disguised as poems, but I promise you this won't be just as sickening.

This is some awful-tasting beer. Who the **** gave permission for these kinds of things to be sold? But then again I think this is my ninth bottle--I've got no right to complain.

What was I going to say again? Before I finally realized I'm drinking liquid crap and I have no intention of stopping.

Oh, right.

What I want to say is, you've got the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. Makes me want to pluck them out of their sockets and shovel them down my mouth so a part of you will live inside me.

Hold the **** up, that didn't come out right.

I'm sorry.

What I want to say is, your eyes are hands that touch, that hold, that strangle, that drown me in almost the same nothingness liquor gives me. Your hands are lips that kiss, caress, cradle the emptiness of a mouth full of glass shards. Your lips are knives, and claws, and doors that never open.

And I must be really drunk if I call you my crush, because you are built with words in my mind, screams and cries and echoes of nightmares. No, you're not my crush.

You are the reason I'm sitting in a throne of broken bottles and spilled liquor, shattered glass and stinking *****, beads of jaded crystals and tears of blood and water and where the **** did the rest of my beer go?

No, I didn't mean to include the last part.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry because you once told me I should stop drinking, because I do stupid things when I'm drunk, like right now, I'm writing to a guy who doesn't give a ****, and I can't even string the right words together, God, it hurts to think, to feel, God, I can't stop thinking about you.

I'm sorry.

You once asked me why I can't stop drinking. Because beer tastes like crap, why the hell would anyone want to drink those stuff? At that time I had no answer, but now I do.

I'm drinking this liquid **** because I want to stop feeling like ****, but it won't stop hurting, it won't stop hurting, *******, it won't ******* stop hurting!

Now my eyes are bleeding, my wrists are weeping crimson tears, I don't remember when I picked up a broken piece of glass and slit my own veins, and now the scent of blood and tears and alcohol and ***** is a choking entrapment, I thought it would stop hurting.

I don't even remember why I started drinking in the first place, why I feel so angry and miserable and lonely. But I remember you. I remember every last piece of you, flashes of lightning in my fists, thunderclaps in my chest, earthquakes beneath my skin, I remember you, you gathering me broken in your arms. I remember you drenched in my blood, in my sorrow.

But you're not here right now, no one is picking up the shattered pieces of me strewn across the velvet carpet, no one is holding me, no one cares, no one is helping, God!

It won't stop hurting.

I'm sorry.

Help me, it hurts to feel, it hurts to think, it hurts to remember, every-*******-thing hurts, *******, help me!

Someone help me, someone care for me, someone fix me, someone, anyone...

More beer, please.


-DA

Talk to me through this boundary
Hidden, it doesn't matter
Talk to me even if we can't see
Let this doors shatter

Tell me of your dreams
the stars you wish to reach
Tell me of your life's hymns
the sorrow, the joy in each

Let's fall, let's look down
Forget about rationality
Let sunlight be our crown
Thinking is an inability

Open the door if you want to
Meet my gaze, smile at me
And I'll watch the butterflies with you
We're all that we see.

June 28, 2013.
    
Dear--no, this is not a diary entry, this is not a summary of the things I experienced today, this is not about how I felt when my crush said 'Hey', this is not about him or her, this is not about me.
    
Dear Cupid.
    
This is about you and your stupidity and idiocy, and your breathtaking suckery in archery, this is about how much I want to punch you in the face if you really exist, because of all the gods and goddesses the Greeks and Romans worship, you're the most vile of them all.

This is about how you whistled merrily down the street, completely unaware of everyone and everything around you, clutching your bow with an arrow nocked on its string, poised to strike.

This is about how you saw this girl who was indifferent to almost everyone and almost everything, this girl who never really cared, this girl who did not know love. This is about how you smirked to yourself and suddenly felt power surging through your veins, for you have found your target, this girl who always thought about everything and never let her heart decide, this girl who tried so hard to forget she can feel, this girl who never, ever loved, and was never, ever loved.

This is about how you felt everything slow down around you, how your sight narrowed down to the space between you and this girl, how your arrow yearned to be unleashed, to fly across the void that needed to be filled, to strike this girl who often forget she had a heart, this girl who needed to know love.
    
This is about how you pulled the bowstring to your cheek, felt the flecked feathers brush the bottom of your eyelids, saw nothing but this girl who forgot how to smile, this girl who never imagined you would set your sights on her, and this is about how your fingers set the string loose, set the arrow free, sent it soaring across the gap that you wanted to fill.

This is about the explosion of color in a gray room when the blade made contact with this girl's chest, this girl who went reeling back, stumbling back, so taken aback was she that the sudden fire in her ice-cold world rendered her blind and dumbstruck.

This is about how you snickered smugly to yourself because quite abruptly this girl was suddenly no longer indifferent, this girl suddenly cared, this girl remembered she had a heart--because it started beating too fast, it started screaming, it started living.

This is about how pleased you were you immediately set your bow and your arrows down, how you sighed in anticipation of an entertaining show, how you were so satisfied you instantly sat back and relaxed to enjoy the real life movie.
  
This is about how excited you were you forgot the most essential thing about your job.

You forgot to shoot the other one.
    
Dear Cupid.

You're such an *******.

But this is not only about you, this is not only about your folly, this is not only about your irresponsibility, this is not only about the wicked weapons you carry, because this is also about the one you forgot to shoot.

This is about him, and how I wish he could listen to the songs only I can hear, how I wish he knew I'm talking about him, how I wish that someone will somehow capture you, Cupid, so they can tie you to a stake and set you on fire, and maybe this feelings will hopefully dissipate along with the smoke into thin air.
  
This is about him, and how the sudden vibrancy of the colors around me disabled me almost completely. This is about him, and how his eyes suddenly seemed purer, his hair darker, his smile brighter. How I saw stars in the velvet sable of his irises, and I saw poems etched on his skin, words filling in the empty spaces inside him, the silence he wraps around himself a harsh barrier I can never bring myself to attempt breaking through.

This is about him, and the way every ounce of my awareness fixates on him every time he enters the room, and the way my heart flutters like a hummingbird's wings, singing a frantic, desperate melody of fear and panic and anticipation and everything dreadful contained in your arrows.
  
This is about him, and rainbows and sunshine and butterflies, and everything I've never known.
  
This is about how the girl who never knew love suddenly knew how love looks like. She knew the sharpness of his cheekbones, the angles along his jowls, the point of his chin. She knew the softness of his lips, the hardness of his jaw. She knew him a lot more than she wanted. She knew him intimately.

This is about him.

This is about the words I'll never have the courage to say, the poems I will never be able to write. This is about heartbreak and chocolates and long walks in the rain. This is about the tears I will never be able to shed, the smiles I forget to wear, the genuine laughter I always try my best to imitate.
  
And I lied, because this is also about me.
  
This is about me, and the lies I tell everyday. This is about gazing at the stars and wishing I could tack my fingertips on those bright pinpoints of light, wishing I could give my body to the sky, because having no body means not having to feel anything.
  
Dear Cupid.
  
If only you know what you've done. If only.
  
I would love to strangle you with my own two hands.
  
And maybe I'll forgive you for giving me this, the way I forgive him everyday for every hurt he gives me.
  
But this is not only about you, and this is not only about him. This is not only about me.
  
Because this is also about love.

One.

When I first saw you I forgot you the next second. The next time I saw you I forgot you after a minute. Then after that when I saw you, I never forgot you.

Two.

When I first talked to you I didn't give a **** who you were. The next time I talked to you I thought your eyes were beautiful. Then after that, I was never able to gather enough courage to tell you.

Three.

You remind me of someone whom I loved in my past life, when I was young and stupid and had no idea what love was. You remind me of heartbreak. Of my pathetic attempts to stitch myself back together after being broken in half, of the stars I always wished I was part of. You remind me of cold nights and cold days, when no amount of heat could penetrate the chilling draft enclosing this empty shell. You remind me of waking up in the middle of the night and feeling incomprehensibly lonely and miserable, seeing how big the bed suddenly was.

Four.

I want to be away from you. I want to be somewhere, everywhere, anywhere, as long as I can't see you, as long as I can't feel my skin prickling with awareness telling me, "He's right here." I want to abandon everything I've built here because I don't want to see you anymore, I don't want to hear your voice, I don't want to feel its rich depth resonating in my chest, I'm sorry, I just don't want to be near you.

Five.

I write about you. I write poems, songs, stories about you, and when silence is screaming in my ears each one of those words sing a melody to me, carving my flesh out, gorging empty spaces inside me. When the rest of the world is talking so loudly all I can hear is my mind yelling, my heart squeaking, each one of the letters I wrote weave in and out of my mind's eye, and each wasted ink, each drained pen, taunts me. Why am I writing about you?

Six.

I am not the kind of girl who normally says things like this. I don't want to say this. What I want is to burn these papers and all the dancing strokes of all these wasted ink, to watch this inanimate funeral pyre send its smoke spiraling towards heaven, to scatter the ashes into the vast ocean so I can never see this again, so I will never remember you, so I will forget I wrote anything for you. And maybe if I tried hard enough I can pretend I never met you. Maybe I can pretend you never meant anything to me.

Seven.

I hate you.

Eight.

I hope you burn in hell.

Nine.

I hope I'm not in love with you.

Ten.

She's a lot better than I am. Eleven. I will never be as beautiful as she is. Twelve. Don't worry you won't have to make a choice, because I will never be able to say this to your face. Thirteen. If you ever realize I'm talking about you, don't speak to me again, because I'd rather disappear, I'd rather run away than face you. Fourteen. I'm sorry I'm an idiot because--

Fifteen.

I'm in love with you.

Hell is not made of fire.

A lot of people believe that hell is a world covered in flames, with heat that sears through your very being, scorches your soul, and inflicts terrible agony. They say Hell is a place for fiery torment, where fire is a vicious serpent that winds through your existence and seeks to quench every feeling except anguish, but at the same time refusing to let you be conquered by nothingness, keeping you wide-awake so you can feel every blistering sensation.

They're wrong.

Hell doesn't look the same for everyone else. Hell is a multi-faced mirror with countless reflections caging you inside the hollow of a diamond so you can see the glaring facets you refuse to look at. Hell is not always a place; sometimes it's a feeling, sometimes it's an event--sometimes it's a person.

Hell shows itself not only in death. Hell is everywhere--it's just somewhere around the corner of the street, hiding its face behind a newspaper, waiting for you to make the wrong choices. It's just somewhere behind you, an invisible fiend watching your every step, waiting for you to stumble. And once you do, it will laugh at you. You won't hear its sinister laughter, nor would you notice the subtle shift of the ground beneath your feet.

The odds are no longer in your favor.

Hell is cold. Hell is calculating. Hell is terrorizing.

Hell is reaching inside yourself, searching your heart, trying to find out how you really feel--but ending up finding nothing. Hell is opening your mouth to scream but nothing comes out because there is nothing left inside. Hell is the immovable boulder weighing down on your chest, it is the desperate need for the ability to cry, it is the panic and anguish that comes when you realize you can't.

Hell is watching him with his perfect hair and perfect eyes and perfect smile, knowing he isn't even aware of your plain existence. Hell is realizing for the first time that unrequited love is not as romantic as people say. Hell is waiting, waiting, waiting for something you know won't come. Hell is finally getting the nerve to say 'I love you' but only receiving silence in return. Hell is laughing it all away and saying it's nothing, I understand why, all the while wishing you could run to someplace where you can cry and scream without being heard. Hell is falling in love.

Hell is the red mark on your record, the frowns on your parents' faces, the pitying looks on your friends' expressions. Hell is the star you failed to reach, the shaking heads, the consoling pats on your back. Hell is the mocking laughter ringing in your ears even after they've long ended. Hell is the condescending voices echoing from somewhere in the back of your mind, reminding you who you were, who you've been, and who you are now. Hell is laughing at you. Hell is disappointment. Hell is trying and trying over and over and never succeeding. Hell is failure.

Hell is building your life with damning patience, with meticulous thoroughness, with painstaking care, and having it all knocked down to the ground. Hell is desperation, hopelessness. Hell is the blooming rose standing amidst a bed of withered blossoms. It's the touching beauty of life at its most exquisite, the surging anticipation, the reckless triumph, and the next day when you look for the rose you only find a withered stalk. Hell is hope.

Hell is the silent night torn apart by raging screams and flying furniture. Hell is the deafening wail of a child accompanying every insult, every furious, careless word that escapes your mouth. Hell is the empty threat he took as a promise. Hell is holding his hand and realizing it's no longer as comfortable as it used to be. Hell is the sadness weighing on your apartment, so palpable you could wrap your fingers around it and try to snap it--but you can't, because hell is already there. Hell is the silence, the eternal quiet screaming in your ears, as you pack your suitcase, as you stuff in old photographs trapped behind the cracked glass of their picture frames. It's the painful need to sit still and concentrate on breathing because you suddenly forgot how to. It's looking around you, seeing the stripped bed, the empty closet, the unsettling dust floating along the light filtering through the misted windows. Hell is falling out of love.

I could go on about hell forever, and I would never be able to enumerate all of them because there can only be so many words that can describe hell, and there are too many people in this world who see different kinds of hell. I cannot accurately define hell, I don't know much about it. I cannot claim to have seen hell, because I've never been to a place like it before.

But I know that hell is cold.

Because hell is not always made of fire.

Our song is an endless, ever-repeating litany
Blanks between the lyrics, almost meaningless
Chanted along with our names, echoes incessantly
Just as long as we listen to the melody's caress

Timed beats, let's not lose ourselves
In the words we don't understand
Like forgotten tales stuck in the bookshelves
Abandoned in a merciless wasteland

Heart pulsates with every spoken syllable
Count them, count the seconds of our lives
Will knowing make us less gullible?
Discern the path, which reason jives?

Our song is an eternal, unspoken prayer
Lyrics are often too vague to mean anything
It goes on with only two words to decipher
Your name, my name is all that fills everything.