Love Letter

I went to your house on Saturday, obviously you weren’t there. Your mom was out shoveling, she told me that you were in St. Cloud or something. You are probably clueless as to why I was there, I kinda am myself! All I know is that I got this advice from someone: “you can’t give up, giving up is bad.” So I decided that I wasn’t going to give up yet. It was hell getting to your house, I hope you know that. I only went because I needed to let you know everything. In truth, I had given up on you before; I was drowning my sorrows in Andy. He is not inadequate, in fact, he has been just excellent... it’s just… he’s not you, Zach. I still breathe you. Dan and I were talking about you; I told him that I need you like I need oxygen. He told me that there are other ways to get oxygen. I said yes, but only if you can’t breathe on your own. Right now Andy is an oxygen tank to me, he makes me happy, I can breathe with him. However, I would prefer to remove it and breathe you in again. That would make me so much happier, to be free. It’s difficult for me to envision life without you. How can I do that? There is the amazing specificity of our connection, the fireworks I have with only you, the beauty that exists in the lines between you and I. You are something straight forward and dependably good in my life. There is the way your presence is threaded through the more basic and mundane aspects of my life. There is the way that you, and your existence in this world, flavor everything for me. The excitement and sudden beauty of the surprise of you, calling me up… and then lying in your arms at 3 A.M., while it rains outside. It’s so difficult, why can’t I erase this? I miss you. Maybe the next time my heart breaks, it will be easier. I’m still young and foolish, my heart can break a few more times before I get cold and evil, and it wouldn’t be so bad if my heartbreaks were with you. Zach, I recognize you in all the beauty that surrounds me: in form, in color, in scent, in harmonious sound—all of these mean you to me. You are superior to all I see and admire—you are all! You are not only the solar spectrum with the seven luminous colors, but the sun himself, that illumines, warms, and revives! This is what you are, and I am just the girl that adores you. Have you forgotten me?  I am the girl you used to say you loved. I used to sleep in your arms—do you remember?  But you never call anymore. You are perhaps mindless of me. I am not of you. I love you. I love you Zachary Charles Dean. I can not reiterate it too often; I can never express it as much as I feel it. Zach, there's nothing in all the world I want but you—and your precious love. All material things are nothing. I have tried so hard to be a rainbow of color in your life. I haven’t always been perfect I know, but if I colored your world at all… I did my job sufficiently. I'd just hate to live a sordid, colorless existence—because you'd soon love me less … and less… and I'd do anything, anything, to keep your heart for my own. I don't want to live, I want to love first, and live incidentally. How can you think deliberately of life without me, when it pains me so to imagine my life without you? If you should die, Zach, it'd be like going blind. I know I would, too, I'd have no purpose in life… just a pretty decoration. Don't you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered, and I was delivered to you—to be worn—I want you to wear me, like a watch. Zach, hun, within you I lose myself, without you I find myself… wanting to be lost again. I miss everything. I like laughing with you. I want to say you give me butterflies in my stomach, but that is so cliché, and not quite right. What is it? I look at you, and have to look away… and back again. I miss that crackle of electricity, the moment of contact coming nearer… and nearer… and nearer. And when we do touch, oh God, it takes my breath away and my heart stops for just a second. I feel it every time. And I used to love to lay on you and listen to your heart; I could swear I heard it skip a few times, too. I loved it when we were in your bed, and you would hold me. Wow. I felt so warm and comfortable. Like life was perfect. Like I belonged there. We are different, but that’s what makes us great together. We are puzzle pieces, what I lack, you fill. That’s why we’re a perfect fit. I’m older than 17 now, I’m building in my own small way. There are walls around me, and I miss you like something’s been torn out of me. You took care of me when I was so sick I couldn’t love (I meant to write “couldn’t move,” but it must be right this way too). Now I’m sick again, inside. All I do is worry about you intensely, even if I am in pieces. Come back and we’ll crawl under the covers and listen to each other’s breathing. I’d love to feel your body next to mine again, your arms wrapped around me. The feeling of your touch breaks me completely. I am yours. I can feel you pulsing through my body right now, can you believe it? It’s Saturday and I love you. Tomorrow will be Sunday, and I will still love you. I know you feel me somewhere. Where do you feel me, in your head, your heart, or your penis? La Rochefoucauld was a French writer. He said “True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.” We’ve seen it, Zach. I’m not ready to give up on it yet; it is likely neither of us will see it again for years, maybe ever. I don’t blame you for anything. Shakespeare also said something that I think about often: “the course of true love never did run smooth.” How right he is. We have had some hard, hard times. I think the key is to not give up, to just keep trying. I want to be yours again Zach. I want to be your girlfriend again. I’m still wishing you will make everything better so we can be together again. I don’t think I’m stupid for wanting this. If love is great, and there are no greater things, then what I feel for you must be the greatest. I will: stick by you through thick and thin, promise you the world, bring you beauty and happiness, take care of you, run away with you. After all this time we’ve been together, the year of ups and downs, I love you still. Days pass, boys talk at and to me, of the feelings that they imagine to be sweet, and it’s all very nice. But my brain, my heart, and my body ache for you. I imagine a million different futures, all with you. My passion shocks me, I don’t often think that way. I love you. There it is, pounding, exposed: love, love, love. Longing and desire, hope without resignation. I want you. I would like you to be a part of me. Right now, and forever. Right now… and forever.
If you want to give up on me, then don’t worry, with Andy I can still breathe. Not as well, not as deeply, not as freely, but I can breathe. I will allow you to stay here and live out your sad fairy tale, and I will be someone else’s rainbow.

Love,
Joanna