Posts tagged with "letters"

You're my big bear

and that means you’d get a big bear hug the next time I see you, but they say you’ve shat­tered your rib cage, lost a pile of teeth, and bro­ken every bone on the right side of your body, save the arm.

I’ve been there man. You know that. That’s why you know I’ll nev­er judge you for what hap­pened. You told me we could always talk cause you were once on the edge of the same blade, so you should have known the same, but you did­n’t pick up when he said maybe there was a bet­ter chance you’d lis­ten to me. All I could do was sit there, try­ing to keep calm, but expect­ing the next call to be about a body.

I should be angry. Not cause you did­n’t call me to say good­bye before you took off, but because you hurt your­self and you’re my broth­er, and that means you hurt my fam­i­ly.

I can’t stay mad cause you’re con­scious now, your vitals are sta­ble, there’s no brain dam­age, and relief has sur­passed anger. They say it’s main­ly injuries to the bones and that bones heal, long as it may take.

Will I rec­og­nize you the next time I see you? Will I cry? Will you ever under­stand how scared I was? I can’t call cause the nurse needs to be by your side, and I can’t vis­it yet cause only imme­di­ate fam­i­ly are allowed for now. Otherwise, I’d be in a car, dri­ving down there with a case of Blue ready for you when you’re out.

I don’t want to wor­ry any­more. I want to see with my own eyes that you’re okay. I want you drunk at my wed­ding with your cap on back­wards, scream­ing your ass off when I walk down the aisle. I want you at every New Year’s par­ty, cause you’re one of the only rea­sons I go any­more. I want you to teach my kids how put some­one in a prop­er choke-hold cause they should know how to take care of them­selves, and you’re smart in all the ways I’m not.

We all need you as much as I do. That’s why you’re still alive, and that’s what I’m going to make you under­stand one day.

Sometimes I wonder if you're bored like me.

Sitting at home on a ran­dom night, caught between the com­fort of your room and the stim­u­la­tion of peo­ple. You once told me I could always call when I said I did­n’t want to be a hyp­ocrite, but I don’t know if that’s true any­more. It’s been a while. I won­der if you ever think about me, and if you do, whether it’s with fond­ness, dis­taste, or indif­fer­ence.

By now you’ve prob­a­bly fig­ured out that I can nev­er be the one to pick up the phone first, which is why it’s hard for me to believe we’ll ever see each oth­er again. I wish there was a way we could just talk, and not have things get com­pli­cat­ed, and not have to wor­ry about you or me or any­thing between us.

Sometimes I think I’m strong enough, but I think of that call and that voice and the burn­ing across my skin, and even­tu­al­ly I real­ize I’m only fool­ing myself. Just mak­ing excus­es to see you again cause I miss you so much. I’m not yet used to the fact that I can’t share these songs, these expe­ri­ences, this hap­pi­ness with you, and it’s left me feel­ing incom­plete.

Even now it feels like there was so much left unsaid. Like my words were always inad­e­quate to the bur­den of my heart cause I was nev­er able to con­vince you of how spe­cial you were and how much I loved you. But time is teach­ing me that you knew, and that noth­ing would ever have been enough.

Not long ago, I real­ized it’s not just you I can’t stop think­ing about, it’s all of my past, from insignif­i­cant instances to major events. If only you weren’t one of the only things worth remem­ber­ing, and I was­n’t try­ing so des­per­ate­ly to for­get.

You were supposed to be the rest of my life.

My hap­pi­ly ever after. My crunchy peanut but­ter soul mate.

I think of you every day, but it’s nev­er a con­scious act. More of a reflex in a con­tin­u­ous stream of thoughts: the cov­er of the album that’s play­ing, this tea is get­ting cold, maybe I’ll go out tomor­row, the way you looked the first time I saw you with your glass­es on, I need to buy floss, the humid­i­fi­er needs refill­ing…

It’s nev­er some­thing I can help. There are reminders of you in the colours of every sun­rise, in the cho­rus­es of my songs, in the back of my mind when I’m left to my own devices. You became a habit I nev­er want­ed to break.

I for­got to give you this one too. It was sup­posed to be us. We were sup­posed to own the sky, to be it’s chil­dren, danc­ing under clouds you’d lat­er paint. Sharing head­phones on a bus, me in blue cardi­gan, you with fab­u­lous hair. Walking to the gro­cery store on sum­mer nights; you’d cook, I’d do the dish­es. Catching up on each oth­ers days before drift­ing off to sleep. All the every­day stuff that would nev­er feel ordi­nary again if your hand was in mine.

It was­n’t sup­posed to hap­pen like this.

I still think of you.

And how bright your hair was when you were recall­ing the ter­ri­ble date you had last night. The guy would­n’t stop putting him­self down. “Someone’s inse­cure”, I said. You agreed. I only knew because I used to do the same thing (but I did­n’t tell you that).

You would­n’t stop bit­ing your low­er lip — how I want­ed to stop that fid­get with a kiss — and flip­ping that gold­en wave back over your head with clum­sy lit­tle fin­gers.

As wrong as we were for each oth­er, I still want­ed to give it a try. To see what it would be like to sing with you in your car, even if you thought lis­ten­ing to rock gave you an edge cause you were such a girly-girl. To find out if you could ever love me as much as you love your­self.

I nev­er asked you out cause I was too proud to make the first move. In this phase where I was tired of being the one to make the effort. Probably for the best. You’d nev­er believe that I avoid you as much as you me. Did you ever tell him why you don’t come around any­more?

I still think of you. Then again, I think about pret­ty much every­one who’s been in my life from time to time, in some capac­i­ty.

You’re the only one I hate think­ing of.