Open Letter to a Lost Love

Let me tell you a little bit about love, from my view

Let me tell you a little bit about love, from my view:

Remember my fingers, trailing on your chest after I unbuttoned your shirt, slipping through the curls of hair that perhaps no one ever loved like I do? Remember what it felt like to look into my eyes?

Maybe you don’t remember. But I do.

Yes, darling; you’re right. I do deserve to be loved as magnanimously as I love you. I understand that you’re intimidated, that you feel you’ll never match the soulful gazes I give you.

Yes, love; I understand your fear, and all of the trepidation you have when you consider me, when you think of the possibility of loving as much as you did, of having it simply vanish into a black depth, into an empty death that seems to pull you, too.

Yes, angel. I know you.

My heart has been broken many times before you. I’ve cried so many tears, I’ve thought I would choke on the pain. I’ve wondered how I’ll ever breathe again, how I’ll ever step from my bed. I’ve felt a mind full of vice-like pain so great, I swear, I’ve wished I’d die.

But, of all the things I’ve ever felt, the greatest horrors were the realizations of the numbness I’ve felt, the vast tracts of memories stolen by pain, by fear, and held far from me, held silently from me, truths I never at those times knew.

Love breaks.

Love breaks, my love. Love breaks your heart and makes you feel; love breaks your mind and makes you aware; love breaks all boundaries and sets you free; love breaks all rules and suddenly…

What will you do?

You’re a flowing mass of energy.

You have no words.

You have no rules.

You have no understanding.

You look in the eyes of someone who’s learned to harness love, who’s learned to sail in love, and you think, you think she’s got it together. You think you’ll never learn to be with her, nor with anyone, because here you are, a mass of unbidden feelings – and with those feelings come insecurities…!

You look, you feel; you’re lost.

And you can see those feelings you pushed away, all of those feelings you don’t want to feel of painful pasts, of insecurities…

And you deny love. You don’t want to feel love, because it will break down all of those walls. It will tear down all of your defenses. It will leave you vulnerable, and you will feel sometimes empty.

How, tell me, how can you feel empty when you are in love?

Because, my angel love:

Love breaks down and lifts away, and sweeps away, and cleanses all of those corners where pain existed…

And love does not feel like pain. Love does not leave traces of ache. Love is like light: it shines upon you and on all of your spaces, and shows you every little thing; love is like water, as strong and as full, but flowing and washing everything away, given enough time.

And what is left, my love, feels empty – as it is not sticking so terribly to the corners of your mind, to the bulk of your mind, demanding your entire energy.

So, you ask me to take my love and go away because you do not feel as I do.

My darling, did you expect to?

Do you expect your heart will swell with joy when the light of my heart shines upon all of the pain you hold closely?

Did you expect to surge with love when you’ve cut off and dammed up the very source of your love, when you swell only and exclusively for children, born of your pure love and innocence?

Did you expect you’d have less of an effect upon me, when you slip your arms around me, unbeknownst to you, giving still more than my parched heart has felt in so many years?

Did you decide you don’t want to listen anymore, to feel any more simply because love is so new to you, again?

One. Two. Me.

1.

That day when you came to stop me from saying “Goodbye, I love you.”

That night when you picked me up from the airport, when – again – I wanted it to be over.

Those lingering embraces.  Those passionate kisses.  Those heart-felt words – from both of us.

That could have been forever.

Don’t tell me I made things up, that I exaggerated emotion, that I took things beyond their meaning. Don’t try to convince me that I took things out of context when the only thing I took out of context was myself from the context of your vicinity.

Don’t tell me I’m immature in love when I have the capacity to love beyond the space of a few miles, beyond the finite moment of right-now.

We could have been infinite, beyond all time-and-space.  We could have been epic, magical.  We could have been of the things true love and gods are made.


2.

Those nights-after-nights and days-after-days when you “didn’t expect to fall in love,” “to feel so much,” for me to stay.

Those months-long epic conversations when I explained my inner workings, my likes and dislikes, when I wrote books to you in long, verbose dialogues that you repeatedly did not hear, listen to or understand.

The fading patience; the increasing bitterness; the overbearing misery amidst your blissful ignorance.

Did you really not see, understand anything of me?  No; nothing.  You took only what you wanted, needed, and disregarded the rest, left it for posterity, thinking – having had my love and devotion for years upon years – it would last indefinitely.

When I told you I wanted nothing more to do with men, was that not explanation enough?

It’s not that we had nothing.  It’s that it was repeatedly disregarded, discarded in lieu of your past, in lieu of so many things you chose poorly that sapped your soul until I came along and filled you up again.

It’s not that we couldn’t have come back together.  It’s that you somehow ceased caring about what brought us together in the first place; and somehow, you expected me to care about how I brought you back to who you are now… when I have always told you I preferred the man you made of yourself before we first met.

Me)

Go into the desert.

Sing.

Dance.

Walk.

Capture beautiful moments and share them with the world, with friends, with the wind, with no one at all.

Be.

Write everything, and love every stinging thing like so many spines upon so many cacti, guarding what precious flesh lies beneath with so much fought-for life-giving waters.

Forgive even those who bit you, stung you, hurt you, maimed you; for you are forever-forgiving, forever-giving.

Love.  Again.

Let this time be a lesson; and, this time, find that wolf, that coyote, that mountain lion, that bobcat, that bear, that eagle that will forever-love you, whom you can forever-love-give-love-receive-love-amen.

It’s time:

Kiss the sands and the dry earth.

Swim and sail and surf in those big, beautiful, blue waves.

Go.  Wherever.  Life takes you.

Be your heart.

Bring the rains to barren lands; and dance, laugh, kiss; let the waters wash every pain clean.

Be forever-good-and-loving.

Indulge your every desire, dream and wish.

Find your fantasies in life and love, and live them fully, for so few will leave their pains and morbidity to bring childish dreams to reality.

Do.

And dare, as you always dare.

This is your life, your posterity.

Bring about me.

Photo ©2015 MLM