A Letter to an Unknown Love

I've kind of been waiting on you my whole life, but I'm probably not going to tell you that. Instead I'm going to show you, in very minute, subtle but big ways. I'm going to hold your hand a lot, but not enough to crowd you, and I'm going to look at you sometimes with curious eyes, wondering what I did to deserve someone who fits me like you do.

I spent so much time wondering about where you are, and what I was doing wrong to make it so that you wouldn't see me, or notice me. I was always so down and hard on myself not realizing that if I didn't think I was important, nobody would think I was. I'd been treating potential dates up until you like I had to win them over, I had to make them like me, not realizing that it was me who was holding all the cards, that I was the prize.

I'm not sure how I'll meet you; maybe out at a bookstore or a video game expo. Maybe at a poetry meeting or simply by bumping into each other. I'm not sure if I'll impress you immediately, or if I'll be that slow burn that eases into your life and warms you from the inside out. I do know that if it's you that I've been waiting on, I'll definitely know it. And maybe deny it.

You see, I'm afraid of myself. Afraid of letting myself go and afraid of the power with which my heart and soul rule my life. I know if you somehow find a home in either of those places then I'll fear you too, or rather who I'll be because of you. I lost myself once in a guy and it took me so long to trust myself after him that I found myself chasing unattainable and ultimately uninterested (and uninteresting) men and I never want to go back. There's no GPS to the soul, and I'd hate to have to build myself all over from ashes into a woman.

I don't know you, but I know you'll be kind. I need kindness in my life because more often than not I'm unkind to myself and rarely believe in my own good. I know you'll be intelligent, cause Lord knows I don't find i'g'nant men attractive. I know you'll have depth to you, some of which you'll let me swim in, the rest which you'll hold for yourself and God.

I have to warn you, I'll be insecure. I'll be worried. I won't see me the way you do, and won't think I'm as ______ as you think I am. I'll worry about other girls and what they say to you and what you feel about what they say. It'll drive you, I know, but just find patience with me; I've never had someone like you before who wanted all of me, not just the fleshy, sensual parts, and my base mind will always take it there with you and other women. It's me, and before you get to me, I'm already working on it so try and just walk with me there.

I worry about finding you. I think about how my life would be different, but at the same time I know to find you, I've got to find me first. And as I'm slowly clearing away the trees that are keeping me from seeing the forest, I know somewhere along the path you'll be waiting. And this time, I think I'll be ready.

A Letter to a Heartbreak

You are the reason I don't think I'm beautiful. Okay, that was melodramatic. You are the reason I refuse to see beauty in myself.

Before you, I was confident. I was secure. I was that small firecracker with the big boom and glow at the end; small in stature, big in impact. I was outgoing, and sweet and never afraid to be myself. I knew that anything I ever did, I could put my full heart into it because I was a great person; nobody would intentionally hurt me.

And then you broke my heart. I knew someone would have to be the first, but I was expecting someone who wasn't you, my friend. I was expecting some thuggin it and lovin it type dude who I'd fall for stupidly to ruin my little engine that could, not you. You, with your clean cut exterior and gentlemanly ways. I suppose it had to be someone like you, as I don't think I'd have fallen for someone else.

I don't want you to think it's all about you, because it really isn't. You were a catalyst. I had to learn, woefully the hard way, that I couldn't trust everyone, but in learning that lesson I thought that I could no longer trust myself. If I could let myself fall in love with you, through all those red, albeit delayed, flags, I wasn't to be trusted because oh, that heartbreak my brotha...

That heartbreak had me behind a gazebo, in the snow, bawling my eyes out before class. That heartbreak had me second guessing every move I made from then on. That heartbreak had me believing, has me believing that something is wrong with me; that maybe if I were prettier, smarter, faster, better I wouldn't have fallen for it, and I wouldn't have gotten hurt. That heartbreak makes it so hard to just talk to dudes I'm interested in without worrying that they'll f*ck me over in the end.


So in a way, you ruined me. But at the same time, I still pity you. You can't find love either; you're so self-sabotaging that even I, with all the love I know I have to give, couldn't break your obvious self-loathing. All I wanted was for you to let yourself go, let yourself feel free enough to fall in love with me, and even though you could see it, you could feel it and hear it in my every word, you still couldn't believe that you deserved any of it. And a retrograde effect of that was me not believing that I was worth your love.

I know better now, I feel better now, but I'm not that confident girl anymore. No, I'm a bit jaded and so gun-shy. I have a fear of bothering the dudes I try to talk to; I fear that if I get on their nerves with all my curiosity, my wanting to know them, they'll pull a you and put a stop to it, or worse yet, run. I have had to learn myself all over again. I've had to start trusting myself from the very beginning. I forgave you almost instantly. It took me almost two years to forgive myself.

I don't hate you. I'm no longer mad at you. I'm no longer mad at myself. I just wish you could've been better about it; wish you could've broken my heart like a man instead of a boy. A man wouldn't have let it get so far and thus I wouldn't be so distrusting of others. A man would've looked me in the eyes, so I wouldn't be so sure that when men talk to me, compliment me, they must be lying. A man would've. You didn't. That's my only regret about loving you.

Is it hard? Terribly. Will it always be? I know it won't.

I know I am beautiful. I know I am smart. I know all men are not like you. I know that somebody is going to love me better than you ever could. So the hard part is over; now all I have to do is convince myself, will myself to believe it.

A Letter to a Friend

I'm sorry.

I rarely ever say that, but feel the need to start off with that. I think the last thing I said to you a few months back when we last talked was to grow up...and then I hung up. That was childish, and wrong. I was frustrated and upset with not only you but with my whole life and just took it out on you. I was supposed to be there for you, like you'd been there for me so many times when I thought the world was against me and where was I? Wrapped up in my own world.

You were frustrated. You felt stagnate. I'd just been to that place and instead of coming at you in empathy, I got annoyed with you. You, who had so much to give in life, so much direction, felt stuck? Why? What for when you had the world in the palm of your hands?

I remember work that day was crazy. I'd gotten in trouble for some minor sh*t, this dude I was digging blew me off, and then here you go...not recognizing your potential and sh*t...

I haven't heard from you since, but I know you're well. I guess this letter is more for me than for you; it's me learning to let not only you go, but that guilt that I carry with me for not being the friend I should've been to you.

It's funny, but with every friend I get now, the males anyway, I search for your characteristics. I want to learn them to see if they walk like you, or talk like you, if they see me the way you do, so clearly and easily despite all the opaque glass I have up around my true self. Nobody's come close. I don't think anyone ever will.

I love you. I miss you. And if I see you one day in the street, I'm kicking your ass on sight for not calling me.

Love.