Sweet Summer Child: A Love Letter

Photo by Petr Ovralov on Unsplash

Written December 9, 2016

I am not a gifting person. Years ago, someone suggested I write them something about love as a gift instead. I made many starts, completed nothing. Perhaps happiness doesn't inspire me the way sorrow does. Then last year came the first and only love letter I've ever written.

Does it mean more if you write letters? May I?

Dearest.

When I met you, the only taste I remembered any more was the taste of ashes in my mouth.

When I met you, the sun had cracked open, and loss was everywhere. 

When I met you, you were a shadow, hidden among shadows, a nervous joke whispered on the winds of my thoughts. 

When I met you, I was looking for a friend. 

Then I met you, and the sun rose again, whole and healthier than before. 

I met you, and the joke turned to undying laughter on my lips. 

I met you, and I knew longing again, my soul unable to bear its weight. 

I did not know you existed, and in the wee hours of one morning, you suddenly did. 

You were everywhere. You were real. Everything I'd heard about, everything I had ever dreamed of finding. Everything I thought to be a lie. 

I found it all. I found my world. I wrapped myself around it, and in it, and nothing else mattered anymore. 

Oh, if I'd only known that that was the summer of my life...

If I'd only known, then perhaps I would've loved you even more. 

I cannot imagine loving you any more than I did, and do. 

If I'd known, perhaps I wouldn't have held back. 

If I'd known, perhaps I could've stopped pretending to care about anything else. 

Perhaps I could've made the summer last a little while longer. 

But then fall came around, and it was chilly and windy and disappointing, but achingly beautiful all the same. 

There was a book. There was a song. There was a cigarette. And there was a boy.

And tears, too. Of course. 

That was the fall. 

And I no longer listen to that song, because I remember the full weight of those memories. 

I don't read that book anymore, because it makes me cry. 

And you... 

You, I try not to think about, even as I talk to you. I inoculate myself in little bits, hoping someday I'll be strong enough that I can pull away and not leave most of me spread across the pavement in the process. And I pray that somebody else doesn't take into their head to do it before I'm ready.

You, dearest. I'm talking about you. It's the sort of thing you want to do. 

That was when I started smoking. I never stopped, because when I do, I'll have to go right back to the start. And to go right back to the start, I'll have to cross that summer. 

The only summer, really. 

The only one that matters, because it's the only one that's ever existed for me. 

And now it's winter. 

The sun hasn't cracked open. It's just gone away. You see, I lost my own sun many years ago, some time before I met you. I never got it back. It was destroyed. 

So I borrowed yours, and now you've gone and taken it back. Is it your fault? No, of course not. The fault is mine. I'm the one that lost my sun. 

The darkness is an old... acquaintance. The path is familiar, so I don't fall over a lot. I know this precipice better than I know the back of my own hand. 

And I know better now. I won't go looking for any more suns. There aren't any to spare. 

I can walk the path all the way to the end, in the cool, chilly darkness. The pain will keep me awake, will keep me from falling over the edge. 

So I close my eyes, and walk.

And I try not to think of you, dearest. I try not to think of pain and humiliation. I try not to think of naivete, and souls old before their time. I try not to think of despair. 

Sometimes I wonder about what could have been. And my mind looks back at me blankly, because this is the only way it could have been. I did not see it then, and I'm glad I didn't, because if I had, I never would have had the only summer of my life. 

I try not to think about it, but I am old before my time. There's a heavy finality that lies on my heart. Something that tells me that the end has come and gone. Something that wonders why I've bothered to endure. 

I try not to think about it, but I am old before my time. There's grey at my temples only I can see. There's coldness in my eyes that everyone sees. The world - my world - is broken. It has been, for a long while. 

But I met you, and for a while, it was alright. I got to be young. I got to be in love. I got to bask in the summer of my life. 

Thank you, dearest, for giving me summer, if only for a little while. 

And now it is winter, and the only taste I know is the taste of ashes in my mouth.