TO THE PEOPLE WHO TRIED TO LOVE ME

It's funny how we were—or maybe just I was—so intertwined with devastation. And it's funnier still, how I continue to believe that you could've loved me anyways.

stained

I thought you could be the one to finally inspire me to write fondly about love, but now you’ll just be another chapter in a book I'll never publish. But I can’t help but remember how when I threatened to go, you held my wrist and told me, if you left me, I would be devastated. Maybe that’s why you chose to leave me instead. 

I still think about the view from your window. Your lamp casting an orange-pink glow on your beige walls, flashing off the framed painting I once did for you. And the cafe where we first met, your hair slicked back and a scarf around your neck. Where I spilt my coffee on my white skirt. The stain’s now gone, but I still can’t wear it. It reminds me of your laughter, the weight of your hand on mine.

In my dreams, I see the exposed beams of your bedroom ceiling, and how I’d fantasise about them crashing down on us. Or the dimly lit hotel rooms, with one lamp in the corner on. Every other street—in cities across continents—scares me with remnants of you. The crude graffiti on a stop sign makes me think of you; how you’d push the hair out of my eyes, then laugh when the wind messed it all up again. 

Raindrops knock against my umbrella, and their rhythm echoes the cadence of your laugh. On a different rainy day, as the winds whipped the branches by your window, you told me I was devastatingly memorable. It's funny how we were—or maybe just I was—so intertwined with devastation. And it's funnier still, how I continue to believe that you could've loved me anyways. 

The shadows from your curtains dappling your cheeks with moonlight, and blown out candles with the smoke fading into the starlit sky. The fading scent of lavender and faint ash still taunt my breaths. I wonder who you’re with, and what your kisses taste like now.

Your name still stains my tongue, the taste lingering, bitter and burning on my lips. I don’t think I can ever know someone else by the same name again.

fall and falling

The raindrops clinging to the train window sparkle along to the passing street lamps; and I'm thinking about you, your busted radio, and all the promises that we never made. I think I’ll start to miss you again when the leaves starts to fall, when it rains a little too hard, when someone laughs a little too loud.

You told me one day, after a few too many drinks, that I was destined to cause you heartbreak. With your fingers against the last few bones of my ribcage, you murmured, you’re going to break my heart, and I’d still adore you for it. I didn’t know how wrong that would be until months later, after you were gone. How easily you fell for another, and how I was left pining for someone that no longer existed. 

Skyscrapers and sandy shores, running in the receding waves into your arms. I think I’ll always think of you when I feel damp sand against my feet. It reminds me of saltwater against my skin, burning the wounds I didn’t know I even had.

You stayed the night once. And after midnight, in the darkness, I heard you whisper that you loved me. Not for me to hear, but almost as if you were rolling a piece of candy in your mouth, trying to discover its flavour without biting into it. Feeling the texture and the sickly sweetness sinking into the crevices of your teeth. I don't think you liked the taste; you never spoke a word about love to me when we were awake. 

When I sit in the shower, letting the water trickle down the contours of my body, I think about your hands. How they’d trace lines down my sides, my thighs. The water pools in my collarbones and turns cold, and it reminds me of the snow collecting on my eyelashes as I waved goodbye to you. 

The leaves on the trees are starting to colour, and the world is looking the way it looked when we first met. Soon, it’ll be September again, but never again will I feel the way I did when I started talking to you.

905

I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, and everything that I may still do. Because I loved you, from the way your skin folded by your eyes when you smiled, to the way your nails arced at the base. Because I deleted your contact from my phone; but I still couldn’t help but try to recite your number, just to prove to myself that I remembered it. It’s been two years, and now I’m down to just the area code, just three digits. I don’t think I’ll ever let myself reach zero. 

It was mid-July, and we were laying on top of your covers in your childhood bedroom. We were laughing at something that probably didn’t even make sense. You turned to me, the fluorescent stars reflected in your deep, brown eyes, and told me, for as long as you want me, I’ll love you. Everything about you. I wonder if you meant it. I wonder if you regret it. 

You’re soaked into the words of my favourite quote, the one I wanted to get tattooed. Whenever I see it now, I read it in your handwriting, hear it in your voice. I still think about getting it tattooed, think about having a reminder of you permanently on my skin. The thought of that weighs me down, like I’ve tied an anchor to my lungs because I don’t deserve to breathe. 

Months after we broke up, you gifted me a single rose, and told me that you would never forget me. I swore I didn’t love you anymore, but I still pressed the petals and locked them in a box under my bed. I don’t know where they are now, those reddish-pink petals, curling at the tips. I’m sorry. 

I still see you in my dreams, but your features are blurring together, into a mask of ridges and curves. I want to press my hands against those fading bumps and cling to them as unfurling dandelion roots cling to the earth. 

AUTHOR: Rowen Lee is a junior at Brown, and she'll forever be writing letters to people who will never respond. 

ARTIST: Katherine Williams