Letter 1
To my new friend,
You arrived in my life like an inconvenience I didn’t ask for. Twenty days—less, really—and already you’ve disturbed the miserable equilibrium I had carved out for myself. I didn’t want to feel anything. I was doing fine rotting quietly in my own routines. Then you showed up and now even the air feels different. When I’m near you, things hurt a little less. When I’m far, everything hurts the way it always has, only sharper.
It’s pathetic. I know it. You should know it too.
Maybe it’s the island. Maybe it’s the ocean pounding against my skull like it wants to remind me of everything I can’t have. But every night it drags your face back into my thoughts like a punishment. There’s no English word that fits the feeling—of course there isn’t.
I don’t want to claim intentions. Intentions are for people who expect something from the world. I don’t. Still, I’ve fallen—stupidly, involuntarily—for your quietness, your discipline, the way you seem to hold your own body as if it might escape you if you loosen your grip. You look away from me like you’re afraid of being seen, and that’s precisely why I keep looking.
Before our walk, I’d wander this island at night imagining what it would be like to learn the smallest things about you—the reasons behind your jewelry, what made you surrender yourself to a sport so obsessively, why your eyes pull at me as if they’re recalling a debt I don’t remember owing. I used to think sports were opiates for the masses; then you talked for an hour and made me question my own arrogance. You’re stronger than you know, and quieter than you should be. People like you crush stadiums without ever lifting their voices. I hope the men in your life realize that. I doubt they do.
I thank you. It’s easier for men like me to want the impossible than to live anything real. We’re built for longing, not having. Kafka wrote once that he was “too empty” for love; I think I understand that now. You woke something up in me that I cannot keep and cannot use. Something that will sit inside me like a stone long after we stop speaking—which we will, because I will make it so. Disaster fascinates me, but I’ve learned not to touch the flame.
So take this as it is: a confession with no purpose.
Sincerely,
A letter never sent.
To the one I should’ve forgotten by now,
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It’s disgusting how much of you my brain insists on keeping. I remember every stupid detail — every word we traded, every glance, every time you tucked your hair behind your ear like you were adjusting the whole damn world. I remember how your eyes moved before you talked, like they were already five steps ahead of whatever you were going to say. I even remember the way you crossed your legs. Who remembers that?
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I remember every color you ever wore.
The white dress glowing under the cheap moonlight.
The blue one by the ocean — the one that still punches a hole in my chest whenever I think about it.
That godforsaken island gave me nothing except the privilege of being near you for a little while. And look how well that turned out — now I’m here, chain-smoking my lungs into gravel, trying to forget a memory that refuses to blur.
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I remember everything you told me — your parents, your brother, your sister, that ridiculous dog named after Po. It all stuck. My brain refuses to drop even the dumbest details. I wish it would, I really wish it would.
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But the thing that refuses to leave — the thing that keeps me up at night — is your smile.
That unforgettable, beautiful smile.
The kind you already know is beautiful, which makes it worse.
It hits like sunlight in a room that doesn’t deserve it. I looked at it too long; now it won’t leave me alone.
I hate that island. I hate the sand, the heat, the salt, the slow days, the way the nights chewed through me. But that’s where I was closest to you. On those damned bus rides where I pretended to look anywhere but at you, while you stared out the window taking your quiet little pictures. You didn’t know it, but that was the best part of my time there — just having an excuse to look at you without saying a word.
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Now all I’ve got is silence.
Your silence.
Mine.
The kind that sticks to the ribs.
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And I carry it like a bruise.
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Sincerely,
A letter that won’t help a damn thing.