Jul 2015
Dear Oliver,
It’s been a while since I’ve written to you, but not so long since we’ve spoken. I know you’re always patiently watching; eyes lowered but mind forever intertwined with mine. You sit and wait for the right time to chime into the rhythms that skim the slippery slide to the restless places of my mind’s eye.
The world still doesn’t know how you manage to exist in one place and then the next; never resting, always humming to my thoughts “today will be okay”. Some people know about you. And I’m not sure if they think it’s a joke because they haven’t really laughed. I see the worry in the twitch of their eyes, the open lines that come to their mind; like is she crazy or maybe this is a lie? But how can intangible innocence of my conscience be a flaw in my logic. Your light blue eyes are too real to be made up by a tragic cataclysm of chemistry’s flawed magic. They’re engrained in my brain, and I don’t know why. They’re the features that stand out to me the most. I think, that maybe, in my head, I’m trying too hard to give you a soul. But it’s okay, and I know you’ll say it’s fine, because you’re the kind to help grown-ups like me climb the things we’ve clung onto too tightly. Childhood’s grip never did loosen its hold around me. I still feel like I’m stuck in purgatory. But your smile; I can see it, and I can feel it, and worst of all I recognise it.
Sometimes in the darkness of the reaper’s shadows, when I wonder why I feel so suffocated even when I’m breathing, you sit there in our hideaway, calling out to sway the deafening silence that begs to stay, beckoning me to crawl your way. Because, you know I have this tiny light I keep hidden away in my mind, and even when I think I’m about to die out in existential cinders of the world’s abandoned fire… I’ll follow it. You have my hope under lock and key, guarded only by your trust in my will to live and forgive, not only others but myself. You float around my sickness with it, see right through the thick fog of misty tears that forever stream across my face. You grin at me and say, “It’s alright, you’re alive.”
To tell you the truth, that line hurts as much as it helps, because you’re not; I reach out into our void and touch your nothingness with my aching fingers, try to hold your hand, to feel the touch of something uncorrupted and sinless… only to end up curling myself around the air where your comfort still softly lingers. Maybe it’s a small curse wrapped in the purest blessing but you’re something I can’t extinguish. People think you grow out of these things, but imagination only grows with you.
I’ll finish this pointless letter with the words that truly shape you. You are the countless moments people wish they would never forget. You are the thump of a child’s wild heart. You are the light that first hits our blind eyes. You are not alive, but you are living in us all. And the purest thing I can say today is, there’s nothing more I could wish for.
Yours sincerely,
Me.
It’s been a while since I’ve written to you, but not so long since we’ve spoken. I know you’re always patiently watching; eyes lowered but mind forever intertwined with mine. You sit and wait for the right time to chime into the rhythms that skim the slippery slide to the restless places of my mind’s eye.
The world still doesn’t know how you manage to exist in one place and then the next; never resting, always humming to my thoughts “today will be okay”. Some people know about you. And I’m not sure if they think it’s a joke because they haven’t really laughed. I see the worry in the twitch of their eyes, the open lines that come to their mind; like is she crazy or maybe this is a lie? But how can intangible innocence of my conscience be a flaw in my logic. Your light blue eyes are too real to be made up by a tragic cataclysm of chemistry’s flawed magic. They’re engrained in my brain, and I don’t know why. They’re the features that stand out to me the most. I think, that maybe, in my head, I’m trying too hard to give you a soul. But it’s okay, and I know you’ll say it’s fine, because you’re the kind to help grown-ups like me climb the things we’ve clung onto too tightly. Childhood’s grip never did loosen its hold around me. I still feel like I’m stuck in purgatory. But your smile; I can see it, and I can feel it, and worst of all I recognise it.
Sometimes in the darkness of the reaper’s shadows, when I wonder why I feel so suffocated even when I’m breathing, you sit there in our hideaway, calling out to sway the deafening silence that begs to stay, beckoning me to crawl your way. Because, you know I have this tiny light I keep hidden away in my mind, and even when I think I’m about to die out in existential cinders of the world’s abandoned fire… I’ll follow it. You have my hope under lock and key, guarded only by your trust in my will to live and forgive, not only others but myself. You float around my sickness with it, see right through the thick fog of misty tears that forever stream across my face. You grin at me and say, “It’s alright, you’re alive.”
To tell you the truth, that line hurts as much as it helps, because you’re not; I reach out into our void and touch your nothingness with my aching fingers, try to hold your hand, to feel the touch of something uncorrupted and sinless… only to end up curling myself around the air where your comfort still softly lingers. Maybe it’s a small curse wrapped in the purest blessing but you’re something I can’t extinguish. People think you grow out of these things, but imagination only grows with you.
I’ll finish this pointless letter with the words that truly shape you. You are the countless moments people wish they would never forget. You are the thump of a child’s wild heart. You are the light that first hits our blind eyes. You are not alive, but you are living in us all. And the purest thing I can say today is, there’s nothing more I could wish for.
Yours sincerely,
Me.
A dumb poem I wrote to someone who doesn't exist. Performed it at a poetry slam and no one liked it. Enjoy.
