I'll Fold This Letter Into A Paper Plane

A love letter never sent.

It's rained here today. I think of you whenever it rains. I remember the puddles of brown in your eyes, the song of the droplets against your scalp, the water dripping on your face. Do you remember that November and the wet pavement we walked through together, telling stories to strangers? It's only been three years, but it feels like a lifetime already.

I once thought you would watch me walk down the aisle in your Americana. I was such a dreamer. I always had been one. And you - summer's son with honey in his irises, I also dreamt of you taking my hand. I believed I would wait until I was grown enough for marriage. How naive was it of me to think you would do the same.

When you packed your bags and left my country, you took my heart with it. I do not want it back. It wouldn't fit in this ribcage now - this scarred set of bones clattering in midnights reminding me of someone else's head on my chest. Would you call it betrayal if there was never an us in the first place? Would you call me a traitor instead of abandoned? Would you call me desperate instead of lonely?

I stopped searching for your place in the map. The last time we talked, you said you were visiting your girlfriend's family in Canada. I pictured her in my head, a brunette with no chip on her shoulder, her teeth like that of a pop star's. Do you hold her hands when you both pray? When you ask God for His favor, is it her name that you first taste?

It's rained here today. I think of you whenever it rains. The leaves are greener than ever, the boughs as black as a shadow at noontime. I miss you, the only one I've ever loved with my heart still intact.

Are you ever planning on coming back?

Please do(n't).

Reviews

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Your knack for sublime, incisive, literary competent storytelling is breathtaking. Your ability to find novel concepts and metaphors shines as in " And you - summer's son with honey in his irises." Poetry to relish. You must become a published poetess, if not one already!