I always felt like the real you was deep inside you, so precious and beautiful and good. I believed in that one.
But I think I was mostly making that you up. Maybe there are many of you. That’s what you told me. But I don’t want to talk to this one, in these three letters you sent.
angel
If I was going to talk to anyone, it would be the angel creative brilliant one. But if he never existed, why did I bother? I don’t wanna be an asshole. I guess that’s what you had to give. Every day, I was so real for you. What’s your truth? Maybe you don’t have one.
Your life is so much avoidance. But addiction is like that. What did I expect. Addiction is deceit, denial, violence, power struggle. I want nothing to do with it.
Part of me wanted to rip the letters into little pieces, and part of me wanted to write back and say, “You have no idea who I am.” You weren’t addressing me at all.
Was I really just some random Anyone? Is that how you saw me? Then I was wasting my time from the beginning.
inspiring
I said things to you that I didn’t say to anyone else. You inspired that, whether it was the real you, or just who I thought you were.
My heart breaks 90 times. There are some emotional questions–you touched on none of that, in those three letters. Do you miss me? Do you love me? Maybe do you wish you could talk to me? Are you sorry you hurt me so bad I couldn’t be close to you?
You told me zero of that. A recording studio, a technological notebook. Digitized to keep it for yourself. Knock yourself out. You kept everything for yourself.
I never wanted to be one of the crew, to you. I always wanted to be my actual self–that’s what I gave you. All of me.
I want to reread the letters, since I barely read them the day they arrived. But I don’t want to scour them for clues that I matter to you. The real you had a year to say that and never did.
If you don’t wanna drop the veil, I don’t wanna play. I could have stupid chitchat with anyone. Maybe you wrote three letters because you could tell you weren’t saying anything.
mesa
Last night I dreamt I was on a mesa, all cliff, and the land was dirt with scraggly plants. You were there with your abuser. You didn’t see me or recognize me. A lot of people were around. The land was not sacred desert like here, or lush tropical green like where you live.
Multiple times I saw you, and you never saw me. Once I spoke nearby you and guessed you might recognize my voice, but you didn’t.
I think how you chose the known quantity of a violent thin white lady, over and over, intertwining your life with hers. You did rituals with her, took off your clothes for her, talked with her, broke up and got back together, supported her even while she was repeatedly physically attacking you.
It was complicated, how your life and hers were interwoven. I’m not saying all things were equal, and you could clearly choose between life #1 and life #2. The harm and the help she gave you were mixed together–abusers always do that. If they were all bad, it would be easy to get away.
lies
But when she lied to the therapist that she had never hit you, that had already happened, before the first phone call you and I had together! You told me that story during our first phone call, and the weed denied. You went down the street and got weed from a friend, and your abuser couldn’t tell you had smoked it, which proved she was wrong–you could smoke and be fine.
I was astounded, when you said that to me. I was sickened to hear your belief that lying to your partner was justified, since she was doing something unfair to you. Why would you stay near someone you needed to lie to?
Well, why would I be friends with someone who thought it was ok to flat out lie to his partner? Love is about truth. Hiding shit intentionally, to keep getting something you need–that’s just using people.
So chilling–the repetition of bullshit addict stuff I saw in my childhood family. And so wrong, I heard how you had intentionally deceived her, the misogyny of it, and your selfishness, but I stayed friends with you. And everything after.
stickers
I want to believe it’s really over now. The last three dreams about you, you wouldn’t really connect with me: the phone call dream with the huge animals, where you were in Mexico. The phone call dream you wouldn’t visit me in Australia, even if I paid for the plane tickets. And now this mesa dream where you didn’t even recognize me.
This whole time, you never recognized me. I’m sorry I gave you credit for more creative intelligence than you ever had. But I guess according to my dream life, you’re still on the table. Very punny, dream.
The letter you accidentally printed on sticker paper, I want to cover in this sheer pink paint I have, make arts on all the stickers, over your handwriting, and release into the world like a song of healing. Like a bird that could make something right.
I wish I could send some to the real you, the angel you. But I officially give up on that one–ding.
