Unsent letter

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I've decided that this is worth saving, if not for the future if I change my mind, then for my own reflections.

Besides, I think I did a damn good job pouring my heart out.
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Before the end of the week, and the beginning of our new lives, there are some things I have to get off my chest. And this will be the last time I ever speak of this.

So here goes...

What were you doing when I was on the verge of breaking down?
Where were you when I was huddled in the corner?
Who were you with... when all I wanted was you?
And why did all of it never make sense? Not even in the end?

I always told myself that someone like you wouldn't make any sense to me. I hardly even knew you in the end. And when I did, I guess it was always superficial, but I just didn't let myself see it that way. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I was slowly slipping into something that scared me beyond anything I'd ever known. I refused to recognize it. After all, it didn't make any sense. I didn't know you well enough. How could something like that happen? No, I simply shook it off and pretended that I was imagining it. We were from two completely different worlds, and yet bound together by mutual friends. Could it have been that it was just the product of hormones and overactive imagination? Whatever the cause, whatever the reason, I was determined to force what I was feeling into nonexistance. There wasn't any place in my life for impossibilities. But of course, I grew, and I gained the wisdom that only comes out confusion. I finally knew what it was that I felt. And it scared me to death.

It was heartache.

Everything else came crashing down when I realized that. Part of me immediately knew why I was feeling that way, and I still wouldn't accept it. Those first few days afterwards, I kept telling myself how impossibly wrong I had to be, my mind was obviously playing tricks on me. Maybe I'd been watching too many movies, listened to too many of those types of music. In the end, all it came down to was the fact that I barely knew you. But as much as I tried to refute it all, it still didn't stop. I still saw you nearly everyday, and I kept falling further and further into my self-made pit of dementia. I continued to make excuses, and you continued to be you, and it didn't help. My world was coming apart at the seams.

I was falling for someone that I hardly knew, and it was someone that I couldn't even approach.

I fretted away endlessly from then on, and in the beginning I still stupidly tried to deny myself the truth. I forced myself to think of others, to keep you out of my head, but it would always turn out the same. Everything made me think of you. It became my quiet obsession, another deep dark secret that I kept from the world. I grew to accept it eventually, since my inability to deal with it was wrecking havoc on my life. It was merely a small milestone though; I had accepted what my heart wanted, but I was still nevertheless falling further and further into territory that I had never before entered...

Recently, it's been even harder than before. I had grown to accept this pain as a natural part of my life, and I daresay that I was becoming hardened. But now, with the prospect of graduation and everything it entails, I was once again thrown in the maelstrom of emotion that I had originally been in. It was like it was happening all over again. I suppose it doesn't really make a difference, after all the only thing that's going to change is the distance, which doesn't make a difference anyway. For the past years, even though at times we've been within reaching distance of each other, there has always been this unfathomable distance between us. It wasn't discord, it wasn't hatred. We just didn't know each other.

I envy you, in a way. When I see you, you're always so blissfully unaware. So energetic, so happy, so filled with the zest for life that I can only dream of. I watch you alot, actually, now that I think about it. My vision gravitates toward you always, so much so that I have to make sure I don't catch myself being obvious about it. I keep looking for some flaw, some fatal mistake that could justify any distaste toward you. It would make it so easy to hate you, and then I wouldn't have to feel the way I do. But it never works. I keep looking for it, but it's never there. All I ever see if you, in the purest sense. If you have any outstanding faults, I can't see them. They all fade away, and all I'm left with is how I see you. And you're beautiful.

I feel like I'm watching some wild, delicate creature that, at least to me, is beyond captivity, and impossible to tame.

That's what makes it the hardest, I guess. Even if I were to somehow muster up the herculean courage and effort needed for me to even reach out to you, it would all be in vain. You're on such a different level from me, it would be like reaching for the stars as a child. As much as I yearn for you, you're still nevertheless so far from my grasp that you wouldn't even notice. It's really such a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I'm going through hell for keeping this all bottled up. And yet on the other, I know it'll be torture otherwise anyway. So here I sit and fret, withering away in indecision...

You will probably never know I've written to you here.
You will probably never know who you are, at least the you I know.
You will probably never know me the way I wish you would.
You will probably never know everything you've effortlessly put me through.
You will probably never know the way it kills me inside.
And you will probably never know how I wouldn't trade it for the world.

These moments, these past years, they'll drift into the recesses of our minds, and when we grow old, all we'll have left are the faded photos and worn mementos. In the end, it won't matter that I've felt this way, and it won't matter that I'm too scared to do anything about it. But these precious memories, they'll be all that I have left of everything I've experienced, of everything I've put myself through, of you.

It's kind of funny, actually. At the same time, you inspire such warmth and despair in me. I see you, and my heart warms and my soul is comforted. But then I come back into reality, and I'm left with the shadows as the warmth fades.

And so that leads me here, right now, at this very moment. As promised, this is the end of it all. And even though you will never see this, just let me say, definitively and finally...


I love you, _____. I will always love you.

You will always hold a special place in my heart and my memories, even though you won't know it. You will always be welcome in my home, you can always count me for anything, and you will always be one of the reasons I stay alive. You've effortlessly reaffirmed my faith in... everything.

But for now, this is where I say goodbye. I must say it here, because I'm too afraid to tell you in person, even platonically. I wish you well, and hope that you live a happy, full, and satisfying life. Be good to yourself and those you love. You deserve it.