Dear Lost Boy (pt. 2): An Open Letter

Dear Lost Boy,

It's been a while, hasn't it? I don't even know what to say.

Sometimes the memories come in flashes: good ones, like gentle fingertips running the length of my palm, or bad ones, like the frustrated, angry sparks the flew from your mouth that night across the sea.

Already this letter feels more fragmented than the last. But maybe that's just me.

Every once and a while I sink into this terrifying whirlwind of memories where all I can see is the past, but it's a history that's smothered in a rosy hue. Sometimes I become selectively blind to the hurt, to the sleepless nights, to times I would shake when I knew you couldn't see. It's these times that really scare me---the moments when all I can remember is the way you would hold me close or smile like the world could never have been so big and bright as it was in that second. It scares me to think that someday I'll forget that this rose had its thorns, and it scares me to know that I could be destined to make the same mistakes all over again someday.

Like the 1975 says, "I don't want your body, but I hate to think about you with somebody else."

* * *

I'm not one to swear, but sometimes those thoughts make me wring my hands and run desperate fingers through my hair as a torrent of frantic words whisper past my lips.

"Oh, #$%!@."

When I left you, I felt like a bird. Like suddenly my wings were freed and I could fly into an infinite sky. But every bird has to land, and coming back down to earth has made me realize that the ground can be so cold. So so cold. And sometimes all I want is to return back to where I know it was warm, until I remember that that warmth came from a fire that scorched my eyes and destroyed my mind.

The worst part is when a small part of you sneaks up on me. Sometimes it's when I'm walking across campus or when I'm listening to a new song or when I'm studying alone in my dorm or even when I'm reading my psychology textbook. You come in pieces, softly, so softly, and I'm defenseless against your memory. And when your ghost won't let me sleep, it's the nightmares that trap me. I can't fight back in my dreams, and I'll wake with a sick feeling in my stomach and a sudden desire to turn on the shower and try to scrub the memory of you off of my skin.

* * *

Lost Boy, I don't think you were ever found.

At least, not by me.

In trying to save you, I morphed myself into whoever you needed me to be. I see that now. I can see the emotional sponge I became just to hold the downpour of feelings that flooded out of you, and I can see myself turning into nothing more than a pair of warm lips to bring life back to your shivering spirit.

And when you wanted my body more than my heart, I gave you that too.

* * *

When the memories are especially bad, I take out my guitar. Like somehow I can lose you in the very essence of music that once brought me to you. Like if I sing so loud that my voice cracks or I break the strings I'm trying to strum, then you'll finally dissipate too.

I've never had a crazy "come to Jesus" moment, but the memory that keeps me grounded in this torrent is a memory that was born only month or two into our broken relationship. I was laying in my bed, smiling over some stupid little text you had sent, and then a sudden, chilling sentence smashed through my thoughts.

"You will not marry this man."

And whether that was God (which I strongly believe it was), or it was simply my gut telling me that something was very very wrong, no matter how I tried to sugarcoat it, I couldn't let go of this thought. It consumed me at odd moments, the same way your memory does now, but I realize now that maybe we were born of the same stardust, but we were never meant to stay in the same galaxy.

* * *

Lost Boy, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for the weaknesses and the emotions and the things that all went wrong. I'm sorry I became your Desdemona, and I'm sorry you could never stop being Hamlet in the end, a prisoner of your own mind.

I'm different now, Lost Boy.

I'm colder and warmer all at the same time, and sometimes I forget to feel at all. I want you and want nothing to do with you all at once, and the scars I thought had healed are shredding under my fingertips as I claw at the wounds I hadn't realized were there.

* * *

You don't get a rewind button in life. There's no "do over" and there's no way to put the pieces back together like they were before.

But I'll be gentle with myself, and I'll keep gluing the pieces back on one by one as they fall.

I'll be happy, don't you worry about that. Maybe it won't be fast, and maybe it won't be consistent, but I'll keep finding the silver lining of the clouds, even when it threatens to pour.

Don't let me stop you from living too.