a final love letter

to you,

you wrote me a letter, right after all that shit went down in your life.. a year ago. and you'd think it would be worn from all the reading. because it was so beautiful. so much more than i'd even expected. your memories and your tribute to what we'd been.

but i don't read it very often. it's like a snake to me. i'm scared of it, and i'm not even sure why.

but yesterday, i wanted to read it. and i couldn't find it. and i panicked. almsot started to cry. knowing it existed somewhere in my room was always at the back of my mind.

but i found it.

and in reading it i realized i'd lost sight of something.

when i get paranoid and am feeling worst about myself. at the most self involved level that i tend to get to. i begin to doubt everything. you. me. my future. our past. i start to wonder if you humored me through the whole thing, if i was somebody like your mother that you humored to keep happy. telling me what i wanted to hear. matt made that worse by saying he believes that's a trait of yours. i talk to you now, and when we hang up, i immediately feel stupid and convinced that i'm an obligation now.

and i reread that letter, and things righted themselves in someway. not because i thought anything about now. or a future. not because of any hope. i still don't know if we'll ever be able to be friends on any good level. like i think we'd both hope.

but i guess i'd lost sight. the thing that got you through what you were going through last year, partially was the remembering of who you became during us (in your words, paraphrased). it sounds like that gave you strength. that you feel you can be better for that experience.

i lost sight of that. me, the one who is still lingering, i'm the one who's actually forgotten. somehow twisted it. convoluted it.

i've allowed my emotions to create a false past.

and that doesn't mean i think am not an obligation to you on some level. that i dont' think there might just be some of that going on, but ... it's not because you're indifferent. it's because you want to see me come out the other side. you want me to move on, not because i'm an burden or a hassle, but becauseyou want me to be happy. i recognize that.

i'm listening to john hiatt with my headphones resting on top of my head (but not my ears) . so i feel it in my skull.

nobody who knew us then, despite knowing you well, denies that we were in love. that there was something special to us. that there was something magic. matt doesn't deny this, even when he's frustrated with my stagnancy. and i realize *i'd* started to do that. to be the one creating the denial of us, because i was trying so hard to PROVE that we were special. my struggle to prove validity of memory, somehow concealed it.

and i've been fighting , for 2 years, with the idea that love isn't enough. i can logically wrap my brain around that, but i never felt it in my gut. it would come out my mouth, but i felt it like a lie. inside i was thinking "love is always enough. something magic can save anything" and that sounds so cheesey. 'magic' .. but it's the only word i know for that kind of feeling.

that feeling that was there right from the first night. fevered kissing in photo booths, against walls, grappling with body parts and skin. laying in bed talking til 4 in the morning. about the books we'd loved when we were 8. about the names of children neither of us wanted to have. (spider man. lightning boy)falling asleep. waking up because in our sleep our bodies had started without us. that amazing feeling of rightness. like there was nowhere else we'd want to be. doing our own things, at a party. in a club. at a dinner gathering. glancing across the room at each other and feeling something palpable wavering between us.

this is a love letter. a final one. a clarity and an homage of sorts and a smile and a kiss on the forehead and a moment where at least, i remember and i understand. and i forgive and i let go if even only for a few seconds, because i'm not herculean and nothing happens so fast. and i won't pretend otherwise.

so i struggled against love not being enough. in fact i used that so often, when things were bad. when we were about to go broke, negative money in the bank. 'at least we have something most people never even know' .. of course, we had the normal superiority that every couple in love feels. we weren't unique in that, i recognize that. i thought love and 'we' were enough to make up for our faults. our failures. our short-comings. and our natural inner make-up.

and that was foolish.

and i've wanted to be the victim here. even though i said i wanted to know that you remembered it the way i did, when you wrote that to me. when you spelled it out in ways that were so lucid and real and honest, i refused to see it. i wouldn't read it very often. because i wanted to villify you in some way. i think. even while not allowing anyone else to do so.

and i've convinced myself that magic like that is rare. (you do know i'm using 'magic' in a conceptual way that has nothing to do with hocus pocus, yo :) i've convinced myself that if i let go of the memory of magic, then i'll be left with nothing. with reality. with the world that i'm scared of. cold truths. settling for less-than. love but not perfection. and i know there's no such thing, i just don't think i feel that there's no such thing. maybe it even ties into fighting the concept of growing up. neither of us were really into that. but still, the fear is honest. that there will never be another perfect blend of lust and friendship. fitting and understanding. fluidity.

maybe fluidity is what i mean, more than this silly notion of 'magic'

and when, yesterday, this started to click back into place. my memory. it wasn't in a dangerous clinging way, but actually in some way that felt strangely freeing. like things were righted, where before they'd been tilted and skewed like the set of cabinet of dr. caligari. nothing at correct angles. i felt faith again. in you. in us. in my own past. and my own future. separate from you.

i felt strength.

when matt was yelling at me the other night, out of worry for my inability to move on. he was so harsh. he said things about you that were both true and exaggerated. and everything he said rang true, even though i was crying and telling him to just shut up. and getting furious when he said anything bad about you. i can handle anyone saying bad things about me, i believe them. but if they say bad things about you, i go stone cold. intractable. unmovable. icy. some loyalty that runs deep. that's been holding me back from looking at anyone or anything with a feeling of potential, because i'm fiercely loyal, my jaws unclenching from the meat of it. firm. maybe because i believe if i let go, i'm betraying 'us' somehow. that if i let go, or admitted any faults in us or in you, i would immediately begin to lose us. lose you for good. so what he wassaying rang true, but i just felt hopeless. not a drop of it felt like it was making a difference.

although i think it sank in a little, and in the next two days, combined with rereading your letter...something clicked, at least a little.

at least today, whether i experience fluidity again... i'm not longing for it and staring back at it. i'm just appreciating having had it.

and i remembered pride. I was proud. to be us. to just know you. i saw, and see, genius in you. sometimes that comes at a price, i know. i'm still proud to know you. to know you now and have been someone you wanted to lean against in the small quiet moments. i remember who i was and who i became because of you. you *did* play a part in making me a better me, despite how much i've railed against the pain and seemed worse at times.

i was talking to a friend from new york that i haven't seen in 6 years. he said i seem different. i sound different. and i knew without his telling me, what the difference was. i was confident. comfortable with my voice. with my opinions. whereas when he met me, i was quiet, shy. a little meek. afraid of being wrong ..just inherently wrong.

despite my self doubts and self esteem issues, somehow underneath that i have a stronger sense of self than i ever have.

i play the biggest role in that, i know that. but you play a large role in it as well. i have some peace inside, with who i am, that started to plant itself while i was with you.

I was so in love that i tried to cling to us - wrapping myself protectively around us - forgetting the things that life demands. figuring...again...that love was enough. the only thing that mattered. fuck money, house, self, *we* were what mattered. this cocoon of selves. one unit. i lost sight of *both* of us as individuals.

you are gifted. truly. and i am reading this book and the beginning of the book is about a couple, and something about them reminds me *so* much of what i felt. feel. for you.

and she says to him at one point, "as someone of small talents to someone truly gifted, i beg you" she's telling him to go. to do . to own his gift and share it with everyone.

i burned with pride when you would play. or even when i just watched you at the piano or bending over the guitar. or heard your harmonica from within the shower, or muted from inside the car while i ran out to do some menial task at the bank machine or to run into a store.

maybe i will love again. maybe i'll even love as intensely (although differently) . maybe i'll respect them as much as i do you. but right now, in the midst of these feelings, i can't imagine *ever* knowing someone like you again. i probably won't.(this is not saying i dont' believe i'll know someone i can love) you are dark in many ways. you're dark and perverse and flawed and dirty and sometimes-not-'good' and scarred and brilliant. you're fucked up in many ways. struggling. a little lost. but you have more light and talent and intellignece .. more creativity and self-possession, than i have seen.

you will probably laugh at that. or scoff. or think i'm speaking from some place that has to do with love. .. you might bring up , inside your head, the ways you feel incompetent as a person, or a musician or writer even. but i'm not stupid and i see it. and others see it. god, i hope you do something with it.

sometimes i want you to fail without me, but i think feel that because i *know* if you just find yourself a little more.. you will surpass anything anyone expects of you or hopes foryou. and i won't be there for it and i have to admit i'lll writhe with a certain jealousy for anyone that will instead of me.

i want to be better.

i want you to be better.

but beyond that, i don't ever want to doubt again.

maybe carry the seed of what we were, the magic. in my belly in hope that i can use it somewhere else.

i want to let go without losing.

i want to be able to love without needing. care without craving.

but right now, i feel hope.

thank you. for the fluidity. for sharing your talent and your dirtiness and your mind and your mouth and your skin. for what it was. while it lasted.

and i do realize that i'm whole and complete and worth a lot, without you. without anyone. and you've tried to tell me that in many ways, but i didn't want to hear it.

and thank you for still loving me, even though i try to pretend that if you don't love me the way i want you to then it doesn't count as love.

but it does.

i love you too.

this was a love letter.

i think it sums it up.

the end,

thatgirl

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