hand on your heart

November 1, 2017

Dear xxx: Crazy that it's been a decade since we've last spoken. But I still remember that very last conversation and how cold you were. I could never bring myself to call again, and you never bothered either. I have repeatedly deconstructed and reconstructed those last few days and last few conversations in my head, but it has never made any sense to me. How did it all come crumbling down, as if it was built on nothing to begin with? I am married now. She is soundly asleep in the next room. A nice girl, kind and caring and way less enigmatic than you. But I have never gotten over you. And it pains me to suspect that I am not even a passing thought to you these days. That those years, those adventures, those hours of talking, those shared meals, those nights listening to music didn't mean a thing to you, that they weren't part of your history, that I am not part of your history. Well, you are mine. You are a shadow that I will always have to face in those quite moments. I still cannot listen to Jose Gonzalez's Hand On Your Heart without wanting to break down in tears. I imagine, give me another ten years, I won't feel any different. You were the one, always was. I knew it the very first time we met, quite cinematically actually, with me coming out of the rain and you saying, "It's wet out there, huh?" That was all it took for my life to change. So this letter is me sitting down and jotting down what I want you to know and knowing I will never send this. This is me trying feebly to get out my hurt, letting it out, releasing the demon. Of course, the demon goes when he wants to. He doesn't care how wide I swing the door open to shoo him out. I am trying to work it out though. I got enough resolve to fall for another girl and start a life with her. I can honestly say on the outside, you didn't completely ruin me for good. Anyways, if somehow these thoughts reach you, by magic, won't you send some thoughts my way, just to let me off the hook a little, to let me know I mattered too? I don't know what good that would do for me, but I think I need to know it.

mw