This morning, I wrote you another letter.

(All the things that should’ve been said)

Though I told myself I wouldn’t, racing thoughts fill my head.

Perhaps, I should just go back to bed.

(All the things that should’ve been said)

And forever you are my addressee, for who else do I really care to see?

(All the things that should’ve been said)

Only, years have gone by now, and I seem to have forgotten your handwriting. Was it that you looped your J’s or slanted your P’s?

(All the things that should’ve been said)

My, how much time has passed, and yet my letter remains unsent.

(All the things that should’ve been said)

 

The embers begin to smoke, and the Earl Grey grows cold.

And I’m only reminded by what hasn’t been told.

So, I pour my soul, agony, and torment— disguised in decorative words.

I write and I write, until my band-aids begin to peel. I write sentences turned into paragraphs, until I no longer feel.

That loving you is a wound unclosed,

And there I lie, utterly exposed.

 

I fold then unfold the letter, twice vertically, thrice horizontally. I remember you’d say that a wrinkled page carries more sincerity. Slip the letter inside, and lick the envelope shut, tartness permeates my tongue.

I unlock the door, and move through the eerie morning dawn, with nothing but a sheer camisole. And there it stands barely erect, an abandoned postal box— bursting to the brim, mocking me, “You again?” The walk of shame begins. It and I, in congruence, knowing all too well the outcome, but we remain in silence.

~

As I go to move the envelope inside, I feel my feet collapse from beneath me.

I become entangled by thorns, piercing into my skin as I shriek in anguish. Only this pain is unmatched by the morning heartache I have come to greet.

Instead, it resembles a paper-cut, ones I get regularly, from spouting my confessions of love. The vines coil around my arms and push my body towards the umber soil.

Death by a thousand cuts, a bearable pain, so I surrender.

As it happens, slowly, I choose to rip the letter. Pieces falter towards the ground, as if my words were equivalent to that of loose change. And like a ripple, my tortured heart shatters with it. A vine then latches onto my neck, and life, I feel, begins to drain away from me.

 

Only I feel something settle on my chest, airy and all too familiar in shape. I open my weak eyes, and find my envelope intact. I try to reach, but the vines keep me suspended. An itch imbues my limbs, I ache to decimate these Godforsaken words— for what have I become, if not a hoarder of unsent love letters? One lands on my collarbone, from two mornings ago, and another on my kneecap. The envelopes begin to pile atop my body, burying me like old rags. Letters to you from last spring, and two summers ago, always unsent, forever unaddressed, yet each letter before me understands whose heart it belongs to, always and forever yours. Fifteen human pounds worth of letters sit embittered. Made up of only thin paper yet anchoring me to the ground, near suffocation. A culmination of all of the weight of my love— with all of my everything, for you.

 

Oct 10, 1959

 

Thea, 

Goes by like a dream,

Heads feeling all fuzzy.

Lips meet rosy.

Then they start to glisten, the stars up above.

And the music in our veins, breaking inhibitions. 

The heat of the moment makes it all better.

Eyes lock, passion.

Smoke in our lungs, and Hennessy on our tongues. 

 

In the morning, cocoa powder on your nose, peachy cheeks across the coast, 

My coarse fingers intertwined with yours. 

Jam and honey smeared in our hair, sunshine sprouting in the air.

 

And you and me sitting there, 

By the porch, a day as warm as toast.

You curled on my lap, with a book, fully engrossed.

I picture us somewhere among the meadows. 

 

Thea, you were looking at me, and I could barely breathe.

Do you remember summer, as I remember you? The prettiest girl in Verona, who made the whole town bloom. I miss you Thea, as I miss summer with you. 

 

– With all of my everything, Marcello

~

I awaken, gasping for air, throat as tight as a drum. Parched, not for liquid but for desire I do not fulfil.

I received your final letter exactly eighteen years ago. And from the mere thought of it, I begin to weep, my duvet dampens from undeserving tears.

I sit here in a puddle, drenched in self-awareness. A reflection forms, that I can no longer discern. She gazes back, with large, doe-eyes— lost in pools of reminiscence.

I attempt to retrace the steps to what once was, except, pleas of desperation cloud my vision. Where did it all go wrong? Was it in the string of back-to-back letters of 61′, or New Years Day, 1967? A kaleidoscope of every piteous word, every idyllic paragraph, every creased page, flickers before me— like a machine gone haywire. And, for just a short while, I vanish inside the confines of the mind, rummaging through my labyrinth of love letters.

Branches scrape against the glass, as the mighty wind roars. Yet, I am preoccupied by the humming of my heart, and the song it urges me to listen to.

 

This morning, I did not write you a letter.

(All the things that should’ve been said)

It is autumn, and I am still where you left me, and where I’ll continue to wait, by the post.

(All the things that should’ve been said)

Initials still engraved on the side, T ♥ M, here you told me, “Thea, I love you the most.”

(All the things that should’ve been said)

It was all but a nightmare. Only this one was very real.

I realise I am not dying from thorny vines, but drowning in unsent love letters.

And all I keep thinking about is—

(All the things that should’ve been said)