My dear, a letter

To you,

This is a note, a letter of sorts, undelivered, of the kind that brews beneath the surface of your skin, pulling and scratching until it finds a way out. These words spill forth, wanton, brash, untempered, and I could not stop them even if I had the temerity to try; I would be beaten raw, bleeding from the inside. Already my breath comes out ragged, and I could swear my heart is mangled. Yet through this all, a small pulse continues, a tiny nugget of energy, a hope that strings me forward, moving me like I am at the hands of a puppeteer. But this is irrelevant. This is to you.

You who stand so close, yet so inconceivably far away, as out of reach as Tantalus' grapes, as unreadable as the sea. How did you manage to bewitch me with nothing more than the fact of your existence? Never have I been under the thumb of such torturous feelings as I am now, when my thoughts, when my body, when my heart demand you. If I stood close enough to reach out a finger and brush even the tip of it against your skin, I could not do it. If I were within your earshot, my voice would crack and crumble under the weight of your presence. My breath rasps, as though I were an emphysemic old man, and my back hunches like the trunk of an ancient tree, my eyes darting off you as quick as yours find mine, as though I am searching for something lost. In truth, I am, for have I not lost my heart to you? It elicits no surprise then, to find that they are so often drawn towards the place within which I have lost an essential part of myself. You stole from me and I blindly let you.

I would not change that for the world.

I'm forced to wonder whether you have any notion of the fact that I yearn after you like a starved orphan yearns after warmth after years of bone aching cold. Sometimes I think yes, and that you too have let your heart wander to where I might happenchance upon it. I see this, I feel it, when your eyes burn into me, bearing the knowledge that soon enough you'll be forced to retire once more behind glass walls, where the distance between us is even greater. You try to make up the lost time by the intensity of your gaze, and my heart leaps, my hands shake and my resolve melts into oblivion. Why, I believe I am all yours, more so that you do not know it, and I am convinced that I could not shake the feeling even if I were to rub my skin raw and draw out all my old blood and replace it with new. You are ingrained into some shadow part of me, my soul, a hidden corner of my consciousness which cannot be touched. If I should die tomorrow, or in a hundred years, I die with you there.

I need you. Any hope I have for salvation lies in your hands, for I have tried, but found that I myself am no match for you. But it seems glass walls are not as transparent as they seem, and I know you not at all, nor whether this is conjecture, whether this is imagination, or whether it is hallucination. But I would like to find my way to my grave, years hence, with your name still in my heart, your voice in my ear and the taste of you upon my lips.