To My Mirages,

I keep wanting to say you're wrong, but I know you're right. Eventually we'll have to let each other go. And I'm trying, but in my heart I don't really want to. I can't let go of you yet, just like I can't let go of him or her or them. I know that everyone has to let go of something, but I guess I hoped God would make an exception in my case. He didn't. I didn't really expect him to.

Have I told you why I'm so scared of the real world? Of letting you go and facing the future? Maybe you already know. Probably. I'm afraid that my future home is going to look like the one I have now and I don't want that. I rarely ever want to go home, but I no longer have an excuse to stay away. 

So now I tend to get away a lot without my parents ever knowing that's what I'm doing. The only way to describe it, really, is that I'm getting away without running away. Last week I had a little talk with God. The window was open and I just closed my eyes and felt the wind blow my hair against my face. For the first time in a long time I felt at peace because I knew everything was going to be okay. I'm going to be okay, too. I am. Everything's okay. 

There was one of the many times I drove to work. I opened the sunroof and rolled down the windows and turned the music up loud. The faster I went, the more the wind whipped my hair around, sticking it to my face, and the more I forgot. I was perfectly aware of the annoyed drivers who probably thought I was high, but I didn't care. 

Once I went to the park with my friends instead of going home. Once I went to the park with my little sister and her friends. I drove them there and then chased them around until it was time to get one of the girls home for dinner. Another time I spent three hours on the driveway painting while my sister's friend watched. She's six.

Not long ago I spent a few minutes being taught by my friend how to play Falling Slowly on the piano. I won't deny myself the small moments I can steal with the people I love, because it's not the weeks or the days or even the hours we remember. It's the moments. The moment of silence that doesn't need to be filled. The hello after years of goodbyes. The phone ringing after midnight. The look in his eyes that I can't describe, but that makes me feel connected. The soft smiles edged with sorrow. The 'I love yous' whispered when the laughter dies down. The slow pace of his breathing after he falls asleep. The stillness in the faces of the dead. The moment when I'm falling and they catch me. 

I'm desperately trying to remember that everything's okay even as the terror and the stress and the hopelessness bury themselves inside me. I'm too tired to fight back right now. I'm terrified to graduate and move on with life, and I know that all too soon real life is going to start. I'm afraid it's going to hit me like a slap in the face.

I don't want to face reality, but I know the longer I wait, the more I grow to love you, the harder it will be to enter the real world. But I don't want to let go of you just yet. I'll always love you, too.

All my love,


Midnight

A Love Letter

To no one in particular, 


Love isn't supposed to hurt like this, but I can't stop crying. I think about it daily and every time it just hurts worse. I thought heartbreak was just a figure of speech until I felt the pain in my chest, right under my rib cage on the left side. For some reason the pain won't go away.

Love is the reason I'm awake past midnight writing this. I can't find a word that really describes the feeling, but sometimes words just get in the way anyway.

Tell me, is there someone out there who will love me no matter what? Because that's all I want right now. Someone to always love me. Even when my hair isn't done and and my eyes are red from crying. Even when I'm wearing pajamas and no makeup. Even when I eat big firsts and bigger seconds and still go back for thirds. Even when I make mistakes. So tell me.

Tell me what to do when my heart is breaking but he isn't there because he's desperately in love with someone else and I think I saw them holding hands today. Yesterday. Whatever. Tell me what to do when the tears keep falling without my permission. But most of all just tell me that he's out there somewhere and he's right for me and I'm right for him. Because all I find myself doing right now is crying and waiting. And it gets harder and more painful to keep waiting.

Maybe it is meant to hurt this much.


-From no one in particular