a letter

 you're not reading this, but if you are, when you see it, can you tell me if you think you did the right thing? is this what you wanted? I felt so powerless when it happened, and I feel remorseful and ashamed of the last 7 months, the months when I tried to love you less. I sometimes sit and wonder if you feel like I do, broken up inside and worried, and worthless, alienated, and I sometimes even hope you feel those things, but I end up imagining you feeling nothing but indifferent and apathetic. I'm sorry I was withdrawn. If I could change things about how I behaved the summer of 2017, I would. I don't know how life works, and it's hard for me to understand that one day you have someone and the next day you don't. I didn't know you were feeling this way, I didn't know this was an option you were considering. Maybe if I had, I would have tried harder. I blame myself for thinking you'd stick around, like you always did, but as soon as I stopped fighting, stopped the outrageous fighting that I had continued for the last four years, the fighting for you and the intense grip I had on everything. as soon as I stopped, you stepped away. Was I blind to this inevitability? If I had known, I would have given you a hug. You know, that last day, when you came over, and you needed someone, and I wasn't the person you needed me to be. We went through the drive-through and I complained about your dog in defense of my own vulnerability. You remember, when you were leaving, and we looked at each other, and I knew you wanted a hug, and you knew I didn't want to give you one. I can't reach out to tell you this. I don't feel like I'm allowed to, like suddenly you've created an invisible boundary that neither of us defined but that I think would be crossed if I tried to define it. I wish I would have said more. I wish it could have been different. I keep replaying it back in my mind; if I had known, I would have pulled you in and held you, at least one last time, to send you off with some semblance of love instead of all the cold I shot at you. 

thanks

6 years

74 months

323 weeks

2,259 days

54,215 hours

3,252,955 minutes

195,177,313 seconds

you said forever

witchcraft

my stomach's a crystal ball--it can tell the future

it turns, and I'm reminded of the worry today, when you told me

and it settles into a dynamic flurry that loves to reject everything I give it. 

it tells me the future, and I think I can feel you; 

I can feel that you're hurting, and I can feel someone else holding you,

and I wish I could change this but I can't. 

did you know, nonbiological twins exist?

cut of the same heartstring, forever before the womb, forever before today,

I didn't know.

maybe it's just our stomachs tied together, I'm not sure

nothing seems to cure it, not time, not distance,

not talking,

not un-loving,

not even Pepto Bismol,

I sigh 

How can this be, that you experience things, and my body moves with you,

sinking when you're low, and becoming defensive when you're in trouble,

aching to envelope all your feelings, all my feelings, until we become whole again?

but you don't feel it. you can't allow it, 

because you don't know,

and I always expect you to--because I know, long before I ask,

somehow, I know, and somehow, you don't. 

it's witchcraft, this. have you voodoo-ed me? 

I haven't been writing.

I haven't been writing.

Maybe it's because I'm supposed to be writing, or because I've found other ways to expunge my emotions, but I haven't been writing, and I think that's okay.

It's okay because I lost you. I lost you last week and I knew it was coming, like the aftermath of the year's biggest hurricane, predicted on my local weather station. I had my 72-hour-kit, I did my research, I was ready for the power outage. I held my breath when you told me the news, and my voice was so shaky--I told you I was cold, and you believed me.

It's okay because I'm hurting, and I'm hurting everywhere in a way I haven't before. Some of it is because of you, and some of it is because of my own external recklessness, but maybe that is in some ways also because of you. I had to find ways to live, ways to move, move away from the kinds of hype I used to get when I thought about you or when I imagined myself close to revealing my feelings. I knew my highs needed to come from somewhere else, or at least I needed to distract myself.

And now I'm here with nothing to distract me and I feel it in my stomach, a kind of curdling that leaves me tossing with disgust and discomfort, and I want to escape it. My stomach is boiling. I can't get away.