I don't know why I keep writing you letters as if you will ever read them or really understand what they mean. I'm just struggling with the fact that it's two months later and I still know the pattern in your eyes so well I could make a blind man feel like he knew them too. It was supposed to get easier, but all that I feel lessening is my faith in destiny because God never would've let me hold your hand if if wasn't forever he's not that cruel. But my hand is empty and yours is probably in somebody else's. And I seem to be the only one who understands how that is an injustice to the world. I'm starting to wonder if this is some joke I haven't been let in on because it makes no sense why the heavens are not in an uproar watching you forget what my smile looks like.  And I never seem to be able to think of how to end these letters but maybe that's because there is no end, at least for me. It's never going to be over and I'm going to have to live my life with skinned elbows and a broken compass just praying that someday you'll come home.

i always thought
you were thru traffic
that you were just jet lag
background noise
the kiss in the rain
i've never had
but what if you aren't?
what if this
was the thousandth time
i have loved you?
what if this is just a fresh coat of paint?
what if god
keeps a handkerchief
soaked in the day we met
next to his bed?
maybe theres a reason
i reach for no one in bed
the way i would
if someone used to be there
you know, they say
the road behind us
is littered with things
we couldn't hold onto
i wonder how many times
you've slipped through my hands
like hour glass sand
do you know
how much erosion you've caused?
i heard cupid
stopped keeping count
of how many times
we came together
just to come apart again
maybe it was just a rumor
it makes me think
about how many times
i've almost had you
like if all this talk
about history repeating itself
endlessly replaying is true
i wonder how many times
things have happened already
like the time
i tried talking you
into loving me back
back fired
or the time i could have sworn
jesus & lazarus were playing chess
with my heartbeat
but it was only you smiling
how many times
have i tried to tell you
how many times
have you read this poem
how many times
have i tried not to meet you
in my dreams anymore
it's like sleep tries to warn
me of what's happening
before it does but
i keep having this dream
where i tell you bedtime stories
and each one
is a different way you die
and in every one
i can never save you
it's like you're this song
i have on repeat
and every time it starts over
i forget the words
it's like you picked up the book entitled "us"
and the back cover
said you'd leave
so you never bothered reading it
tell me you aren't
going back in that bookstore
just to do it again
or will you tell me tomorrow?
or is this the time
you don't say anything at all?
if this has all happened before
if we call it quits
before we begin
again
from the beginning
i just want to ask you
to be my fire
because i am tired
of these old lives
and i'd like to see them
burn

Feel the melodies in the way laughter sounds both in the soft light of morning and the seamless night with only the moon and stars illuminating the path in front of you, and appreciate their differences. Take every opportunity to see the humanity in the people around you because I promise it is a beautiful and inspiring thing. Let the passion through your eyes when you're talking about the things you love with everything you are because that light might just be the beacon somebody else needs to remember how to live again. Accept that you can not accept everything and fight for what is worth fighting for, you'll know what it is when the time comes. Not everybody is going to love you the way you deserve to be loved but be greatful for the ones who do and make sure you are always generous with forgiveness because people are people. Feel hurt as deeply as you need to but make sure you do the same for happiness. Words are powerful so Know what needs to be said, and also know when you should be silent. If it's ever dark and you can't find your way home, dig up that old letter you wrote to yourself when you were 5 and I promise you'll know exactly how to go on. Feel every emotion as deeply as you can because nothing shallow is ever worth your time and you only have so much of that, so spend it being an energy that will never be known as anything other than honest.

This is a letter to the girl you finally settle down with.

Dear You,

You probably don't know me, and you probably never will. You don't know me. But you do know him. I also knew him. He was my first love, and I like to think I was his too. Nobody will ever be good enough for him, not you, not me. He is the best kind of guy. He will make you fall in love with him but you won't even be scared because you know he's going to be there to catch you before you ever hit the ground. Make sure you take every chance you get to look in his eyes,  because it never gets old seeing the entire universe in them. He will give you himself entirely, and will be patient with you even if you're too scared to do the same. I swear to you there won't be a moment you aren't laughing as long as you're near him. And if it ever gets too dark or cold, he is always warmer than any blanket and his smile will always light the way home. And if you see smoke when he kisses you, don't worry, it's just from the fireworks you'll feel in your chest. He will wipe your tears before they fall off your cheeks and he will tell you "everything will be ok" in a way that you have to believe it. Sometimes he gets mad, just let him listen to his music and tell him dumb jokes until he smiles. He loves banana peppers on his sandwiches so make sure you ask for extra. If you're sick he will give you a big t shirt to wear and make you toast and watch and movie with you while you fall asleep on his chest.He wants to take care of you so let him carry your bag and make you things to eat, he'll appreciate it, and he makes the best tea. And if you ever go to a haunted house like we did on our first date, he'll be brave and walk in front with you even though he's terrified but would never say so. He'll hold your hand even if it's sweaty.

And you might already know all of these things, but I know them too, and I will never forget a single one of them. He will always be the best love I've ever had, and losing him is the hardest thing I will ever deal with in my life, but he wasn't ready, and I wasn't enough. I wasn't the one for him I guess. So be glad that you are.

Sincerely,
Love Bug

My grandmother always used to tell me that July was the best month for a wedding. It was the only month you could count on to not have rain. And she was right, as long as I can remember, not once have I seen rain in July.
It did rain however, that last Wednesday in May you still looked at me like I had stardust in my hair and the amazon river in my eyes. And it also rained, that Thursday in June, when I wrote you the last of many letters I never sent you. And now I'm 2,000 miles from you realizing that even when I was still in the same zipcode, we were galaxies apart. I was stuck on a planet with a very stable climate of a constant downpour, and I don't know where you were, but I do know that it was nowhere near me.

And today marks 30 days I've been dead in the water, calling your name and hoping that wind really never does die. I still don't know much but it has to mean something that it's July and it hasn't stopped raining.

I can say with an honest conscience that a year ago I never would've thought my reality would be what it has become. I could not have predicted that I would be sitting here now, in the home of an old family friend, if you could even use that term since they don't know me at all, No one does, eating blueberries 2 at a time maybe trying to fill an aching hole in my body that I can't even see. I also never would've been able to tell you how a single person can so entirely become your environment and how If said person disappears, you're left standing in the middle of a Forrest you don't recognize with nothing but scrapes on your knees and a broken compass. And no matter how hard you fall to the ground or how desperately you yell their name, the fact that you are 10 minutes late and stuck in an old dream will never make them feel bad looking at the bullet shells on the ground in front of them from the rounds they fired into your chest. Because no matter how much you love someone it will not make them miss you. But maybe that's a lesson I'll never learn.

I started having to sleep with a nightlight on again. It just gets too dark at night now that I don't get to see your face anymore. The artificial brightness that is absolutely nothing in comparison to you makes it a little harder to fall asleep but maybe that's the point because the nightmares that play when I do fall under are getting unbearable. I spent $14 on a dream catcher that does nothing to protect me from having to see your god ****** eyes every time I shut mine. And I guess the light makes it better when I wake up from another dream where it almost feels like we are dancing around your kitchen together again, but you of all people should know that I only like to cry in the dark.