Love: Me, Lissa

Dear John,

Did you know it was spring when I first met you?

Remember field day, the way the leaves moved ever so slightly back and forth in the breeze,

I remember the way the sun shone so brightly, and how so dully it paled when it touched your skin

I was waiting in that awful long line, waiting for a chance to move up a couple people,

Walking fast, making no eye contact; who knew one wrong move would get me here,

It was one wrong flicker of the eye that made us meet

I remember thinking you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen

I can’t say it was love at first sight, but you were the only thing on my mind that afternoon

Days flickered like pages of a book after that,

Summer came and went and soon I was sitting a seat in front of you in the bus,

I thought I was the luckiest, but luck only went so far

So I sat there conjuring ways to make talk, never actually acting on it

And then one day you randomly pretended to drop a paper boat on my seat,

I still have it you know? I tapped it to the inside of my journal,

Where my soul lies in the shape of many forms

I might no longer be with you, but you will always be a part of me.

You claimed I didn’t care about you,

That my heart was somewhere else,

And I was never open to giving answers, but the truth is it always lay beside you

But you, you claimed to love me,

Such a cruel assertion from a soul that never spoke

Maybe they were easy words between strangers

You said we were friends, but friends don’t lie  

I knew more about you than you wanted to know about me and that itself lacked,

You always used to say that I blamed you for our fallouts, I think that was your own conscious speaking to you

It sure spoke more than we did,

For the lonely person that you didn’t claim to be, you were always ‘busy’

I think you were always afraid,

Maybe I should’ve shown you that love wasn’t surrendering to the fact that being with someone is simply better than being alone,

Because it isn’t constant tossing, like turning a pillow over to feel the cool side;

It isn’t too hot or too cold, it’s perfect

Perfect, because everything is so balanced, so comfortable you don’t notice it

I know, it’s too late now, arguments are incoherent without an opposition;

And you’ve gone so far and out of my reach,

Some things are just never the same again, they slowly wear down and lose energy,

But I realized: that no matter where you are, or who you’re with, or what you’re doing;

When it comes down to it, I will always,

honestly, truly, and completely

have loved you.

Love,

Melissa.