Dear Kait

A letter of farewell written to a young lover named Kait before death

Do you ever look down at the city with its dancing lights, so full of vibrance, so full of personality, so full of order and predictability, and wonder what plot was unfolding through each and every household, building up our history, our culture and tomorrow’s headlines. And do you ever wonder how you play a part in all this jazz, how significant you are to this mechanism, this unique and undefinable world. I do, and I did.

All I can see in my mind is a picture of you, your dark brown locks framing your face, your inquisitive eyes exploring all the avenues of the world, your impossibly replaceable brain moving on from the past, exploring the present and securing the future. You’re you, Kait, you have an identity, you have likes and dislikes, you have a voice, a say that can sway the votes in this world. And I? I’m just a speck of dirt smudged on the world waiting to be brushed off, waiting to fade amongst the roots of the strong and just trees, amongst the roots of the lively flowers, amongst side saplings like you, discovering yourself, discovering the world. And when the time came you and everyone else would grow, grow into fine and respectable people. And I? I would be falling through the weeds, still stuck in the past.

And to my very last day I was still falling, falling until I hit the bottom. I’m gone now Kait, and I’m never going to be back.

This is my last chapter Kait, you still have many many more before you, so please, I beg you, do this for me, don’t look back, don’t get so caught up in the past like I did, look forward and beg yourself to move on, however hard it may be; I know you can, you’re Kait.

I loved you Kait, and I always will. Before you I was nothing, emptiness, invisible, when I saw you, you sprinkled colors onto me, making me more than nothing, visible at last. Serendipities may run in your veins, but in mine are nothing but darkness. I didn’t want you to see me, to see the shadowed side of me, the dying, moribund side one me. I’d give myself the credit, perhaps I was too good an actor, too good a liar, you never saw the way the death creeped up upon my soul and slowly detached it from all. But it was too late Kait, no one, no nothing, not even you could save me.

These words don’t do you justice, but it is the least I can do. I’m gone. I would never know. It’s my fault. But I ask one last favor of you, move on Kait, pretend I never existed, pretend I was never anything more than just another splotch of paint, the only mistake, the only accident on the canvas of your life.

But know one thing, wherever I am and whenever the time, just know I will always love you.