Dear This One

A letter to This One, who is so different from the Other One.

Dear This One,

You are my little riddle. You are a broken stereotype and a revelation. You are change and improvement and happiness and you annoy me.

 

How can you lay there with the hardened yellow soles of your feet exposed, so vulnerable yet so comfortable? Do you not fear what I will think when I see your imperfections? Perhaps not, as you certainly don't judge me for mine. You revel in my flaws, kissing the scar that interrupts the smooth skin of my leg and tracing its bumpy outline.

The Other One would never have done this. To the Other One, I was a fantasy, a romanticised version of what I actually was. It was the expectations attached to this fantasy that eventually undid the tense knot that we had become and caused our threads to fray and split. But with This One - with you - it's different.

Once, in the shower, I discovered an ominous lump in you and as comforting words fell from my mouth, vomit poured from yours. As my hands moved reassuringly over your back, you knelt on the cold tiles and wept and you looked ugly. You are crude, you are visceral and you are beautiful.

The Other One was beautiful in his own careful way, but not like you. You are unashamed, uncompromising and unabashed. You seem so simple, yet I cannot figure you out.

You are my little riddle and I love you unsolved.

All my love, 

Me