It’s been four months and many rebirths since I wrote to tell you I loved you. If you recall, I expressed how unsure I was if indeed what I felt for you was love, and you reassured me that who was to say what was and wasn’t. That was the equivalent of a tight hug and forehead kiss, you let me choose to believe what I wanted to. Now, I write this to you. I am almost 19, and my perception of love has changed alongside my view of life.

The urge to write this came whilst I washed clothes and ruminated on the stale topic of my life. Here I was, trying so hard to be human, and with each passing day, my grip grew more lax. My love, am I human to you? I breathe, I feel, I think, I have blood, and my reflection blinks, yet my soul screams out to be free. There is not much holding me to this world… every day I lose more and more. If to be human is to trample on the body of Mother Gaia, then I am suspended three feet above with vines and my mother’s hands restraining me from floating out into obscurity.

Love, I think it to be one of those vines. To say I love you, I have to set my foot firmly on the ground and feel the soil. I need to hold my love in my hands to be sure. I might have loved you, a flicker, but it quickly shrank and withdrew. It came into existence hopeful, combusting inexhaustibly like a new star, only for it to set its eyes on my soul, thrashing away, and had no choice but to collapse upon itself.

I find it hard to do many things. Sometimes I feel it’s because I think too much and search my memories for a crack that widened over time to cause this collapse. “Stop digging,” you might say. I have realised I do not simply dig to try and fix; it’s something I can’t control. When I sit in silence, I have nowhere else to go but inwards. That’s why I don’t think I should be allowed to delude myself into thinking I love anyone. When I felt that way for you, there was an alternate route for my thoughts. I didn’t need to constantly erode into my being, rather I could sculpt a world of you and get lost in my delusions. I was in love, you were there, somehow this world I created was beautiful enough with tulips and babbling streams, I could skip and be happy with you. Alas, I don’t think that’s what love is. Is it meant to be selfish? It all ties back to me, why?

Love might be a willingness to show you the thing within me screaming to be freed with uncertainty. I have to be cautious and hope you don’t run off in fear. I have shown a few others a glimpse of that—not necessarily because I thought I loved them, but to keep myself elsewhere. Gaze upon a piece of me and hold on to it, I have no use for it again. As I left it with them, I forgot. The unsurety I faced was only on how they would handle seeing something obscene… I didn’t worry out of self-consciousness. However, I did worry once for one, and I know indeed I love him for I said,”‘do not leave me,” and afterwards, I felt raw and naked.

You, my dear, haven’t seen my nakedness but I’m sure you know my contours and have seen glimpses of it. Do not worry, I won’t be stripping anymore. I think it is time I stopped trying to save myself by discarding my parts, and do other things, time is running out.

You are partly to blame for my current turmoils, but how do I blame you? I know you are like me, so who am I to point fingers? It hurts. I am on the ground retching. Why has no one ever loved me enough to stay longer than when I told them how I felt? It all crumbles after. Some things do not matter but make you wonder if indeed you have ever been more than a person from the other side. I have shown concern and bared parts of myself only to face a closed door. So, I resign and pick up my clothes. A whore scorned.

The internet says we are lonely as a generation. Indeed, I most definitely am. I’ve been lonely since I can remember. The last time I felt loved and surrounded by arms was in a distant life when I was quite young and didn’t know the world was larger than my home. Even then, I felt a pang of longing for more. I kept sharing, asking and listening but the hole never got filled.

I should stop looking back; it’s not good. At this point, I know that the past—before 2020—isn’t related to this present. Therapists say the clues are in your childhood, and that might be so, but even when I see things that might have triggered my current detachment, it doesn’t feel right. They couldn’t have settled and calcified to form this clog in me. I feel I was reborn and my second iteration came incomplete, traumatized, and distanced. I could have friends and even a lover if I tried, but how would I keep them? I am a shell pretending to have something in me.

I mourn my old hobbies, but can I even call them mine? They belonged to the estranged selves of years past. I can’t even lose myself for long on the internet; it all loses its taste after a while and becomes dust. All I can do to be happy is waste time and resources. Who will love me when they see how empty I am? You can’t even say you know me, for the self you met yesterday has already been buried. I might not be in this world anymore, but my mother and brother are. Love indeed exists in me for them, and I must hover nearer. But it’s so hard, my love. I can’t hear anything or see anyone, I’m just walking in the dark, and I can hear metallic pans clanging.

When I must, I automatically become something resembling a human and interact. It feels so empty and leaves me feeling dirty, yet I persist. You must answer the name given to you, mustn’t you? Human. Human. Human. I’m so tired, there is nowhere to run. Everywhere I can see is on Earth, and beyond is still a human plane, albeit unknown.

This is why I say I can’t even let anyone love me. What do I have to offer you? I don’t know anything, I don’t want anything, I can’t be happy for too long, and when I am, it is jarring and odd. I’m thinking and drowning. I’m sad, and my body is running away. Have I mentioned I am half my size now? I used to once love adorning this body, but look at it now. The unhappiness within has reached the surface and I am withered and bony. My clothes are loose and droopy. I got a new piercing, and now I want a tattoo. There is an urge to change my appearance, so I stop associating this new body with the old one. I’m so tired, my love.

And I have strayed away from thinking of school for so long, yet it hurts me. My mother is doing all she can and I am here about to float away and school remains staring at me with a sadistic smirk. Whatever plagues me is my concern, but this world still affects me. I try to read, and as I said, I can’t even care about anything. It just passes through me and I am empty. I strain to focus, and all I can think of is my life and how useless it is. The little I learnt is thrown in the grave with yesterday, and we start the next at a loss of all knowledge. How do I save myself?

I don’t even need to save myself, there isn’t anywhere to perch. I only wish to find a place to make money and pass school, that’s all I ask. The first thing about being human is knowing when to give up. I have given up on whatever I am, but I must make my loved ones happy before the curtains close. You, I have decided to set free. It was foolish to even entertain those thoughts.

Goodbye, my love, none of those love chemicals are causing havoc in my head anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash