I would apologize.

Do not come any closer.

I won’t see you, not for you.

The nib will pierce through your walls, your skin, your veins and exhale onto the waiting blank, crisp paper, your very existence–writ in your own blood; a novel of a soul. I will pick your scabs for inspiration, use your wounds for punctuation and make a spectacle out of you.

I will tell you of stories, silly and fantastical, just to memorize your laugh and the crinkling of your eyes so I may forever preserve them in paragraphs and indentations; left vulnerable and bare to the eyes of greedy strangers, running their fingers over the words, twisting, warping your musical, commanding laugh into that of their lover, a lost friend, a brother.

I will think of you at dusk, as the dust settles over the sleepy earth, or swirls out of the way of those whose day has just begun, and the sky morphs into the canvas of a surrealist painter, orange and midnight blues and greens converging on the horizon. I will think of you and picture your sad silhouette walking along a riverbed you never set eyes on, singing a song your heart never soared to, speaking of a love you never lost–or gained, to begin with. I will think of you, but not you, I will think of this being whose chest rises and falls to the rhythm of yours, whose scars faintly mirror your own–I will think of you the way I created you, the way these alphabets define you, the way I have written this story–not yours (oh if only!)–I will think of you the way I’ll remember you.

Not as you, but in fragments: the blood my pen sucked out of your heart, the bones I crushed to fashion my scroll, the threads I pulled apart to get to the whimpering core. I’ll remember you the way I think you should want to be remembered: absolutely breathtaking.

I will not remember you.

I will not remember that you are human. I will remember your tears, your subtle nods, your despair and your passion; I will remember the gliding of a foot, a random hop; I will remember your voice, low and soothing.

I will not remember the months or the dates.

I will remember days, days you poured it out and your tears ran through my pages, spelling out entire poems. Your misery shall remain my muse and your laughter, an afterthought. Because I will remember you as tragic; one of a kind. But I will not remember you.

I will love you for you. I will hold your hands and run mine over your wrists. The sun will reflect off your lashes, grazing your eyes and I will trace patterns in the air, unseen by all, even you. I will remain silent even though I have all the words; I will remain quiet because they will burn through my skin and draw pinpricks of scarlet blood if I ever dare to hold them up to you. You will scare me, until I write you off as just a story.

I will love you with all my heart, and above all, my mind.

I will love you hesitatingly and silently and fleetingly.

For I love with my mind–but my mind must be free.

So I will tear off bits of you when you’re not looking, and keep them pressed inside my books. I will write of love far grander, of love I will never mean–never allow myself to mean–because to me you are a poem, a one-two-three syllable word, a calculated hyphen. You will become immortal, fictional, and I apologize but this is how I will see you.

I will not see you.

 

Yours Truly,