Absolution

Dear B,

I like it when you call me “sweetheart” and “honey”.   The endearments make my face stretch into a smile every time you do it.

Love, M

Dear B,

Now, those endearments are just painful to hear. My chest constricts every time I hear you call me by those words and air is but a myth., but I don’t tell you.

No, I bury the pain; however, both you and I know how well that goes.

The pain weighs too much. I am being dragged down further into the somber abyss where all that will accompany me are my internal demons. Cruel smiles with wicked teeth as sharp as knives gleam inside an infinite cage. They rattle the bars with their vicious claws, shaking me to my core. Anxiety. Depression. The two monsters living within my head, are constantly lurking in the shadows of my mind, always looking for an opportunity to inflict their pain against me.

Whispers, never ending whispers, B. They keep taunting and terrorizing me. My mind has become a sponge, soaking up every venomous word, because that’s what they are, poison.

It courses through my body, and I am lost to the demons.

Yours, M

Dear B,

I was lost to myself.

Antiseptic filled my lungs with each inhale. The fluorescents brought an aching to my head, but they silenced the beasts.

When I was caged up in that sterile smelling prison I sought comfort from you, and you comforted me the only way you knew how:

            “You’re so brave sweetheart.”

            “We love you honey.”

Oh B, I held onto those words because you never knew of my demons, and I believed you, but when my time came and the fruitless robots released me, I no longer felt your comfort.

You: “No time to visit.”

Tick, tock. An interminable measurement of moments passing by, and yet instead of feeling the comfort of words whispered by loved ones, the feeling of the foreign colorful tablets those robots forced on me runs through my veins.

If there was no time then I can’t begin to tell you B how long my wound lay open and gaping. You stabbed me in my heart, straight and true.

No time. No time B. Time is precisely why I write to you right now.

I tense up at each touch, and each word you say to me. I can’t count the number of anxiety attacks I’ve had because of it. The monsters’ attacks eat away at my strength and willingness to go on once again. I don’t want them to consume me again.

I can’t look you in the eyes, not for a long time at least.

There it is again, time.

Why B? Why did you have to wait for him before you could see me? Why was I not enough? Why am I asking you these questions when I already know the answer…

M

Dear B,

I am enough!

Why am I wasting so much time on this unnecessary pain? Truly B, I don’t know.

However, I do know this. It takes too much effort to hold onto the pain of memories and old wounds. Wounds heal with time; I believe it’s been long enough.

Memories are never forgotten because they’ve made such an impression on individuals to ever be disregarded.

So please my dear B, know this, all this time, which has dug a canyon so deep between us, I have never stopped loving you. Nothing can make me stop, not even time itself.

Love, M

Dear B,

While I will forever live with these demons and bear this scar on my heart it still beats, and so I leave you with these three words:

            I forgive you.

Love always and forever,

            M