Leave Him For Me. Please?

Dear Stranger,

You may not know me and my name is probably a combination of alphabets which you do not care to know but, I strongly believe in introductions so here you go. People on here call me A so, I guess you could refer to me as the first letter of the alphabet. I’ve just recently discovered Sam Smith and I like to blame him for this letter that you’re about to receive. So that’s two things you know about me..nice to meet you too.

It’s hard to put pen on paper and carve out my deepest thoughts while at the same time, trying to suppress my regret. It’s also hard to beg for something that doesn’t belong to me but, you’re a woman like me. Surely you must be able to relate on a certain level with me. Now that’s three things you know about me; I’m A. A woman. A lover of Sam Smith. Guess who else I’m in love with that you might know?

I hope you haven’t yet disregarded my letter due to my ongoing introduction because I’m about to tell a tale. The story of this woman that you only know three things about.

A few years back, I was young, naive, adventurous and I had a burning passion for love within me. That’s 7 things now, we’re really getting to know each other. My burning passion led me from one incompetent man to another. Each time, burning with a smaller flame with every disappointing end to all my associations. This went on for years and years. It left me feeling less than good enough, below average. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, you are beautiful’ they said like it was a chorus they all practised to sing to me each time I got my heart broken. I was starting to wish I was ugly. Then I began to think that was the reason but what sort of world would deprive the less attractive from the simple things of life such as love? It didn’t make sense. Maybe I was created to be with a woman. Maybe I was created to be a reverend sister. Perhaps love wasn’t one of the basic pleasures I was meant to bask in during my lifetime.

At this point, I can’t assume you understand how I felt. I look at you and see something that I will never be. That thing that my past mistakes would have loved you for. So, I feel the need to explain further. It is awful, discouraging and miserable to put yourself out there and not get noticed by one single decent person with good intentions. To stand on a stage and not get one moment of glory. It’s like spending months planning an event, weeks bringing your ideas to live, days sending out invites, hours cooking sufficient amounts of food only to have no one show up. I was battling with depression and a really low flame. I became someone else. Someone even more unattractive than the person I was before.

Still with me? I hope so. A while after I gave up on myself and while at my lowest point ever, I met someone.

“I don’t have much to give, but I don’t care for gold
What use is money, when you need someone to hold?”

He wasn’t my boyfriend but I wouldn’t particularly call him a friend either. Our relationship, although unexplainable and undefinable, made perfect sense to me. It reminded me of the sea and surrounding cliffs. It was the way they mostly only had contact in two extreme situations. Either the waters were constantly clashing against the cliffs or they were being drawn far away from it. Despite the wicked lashes being enforced of the cliff, it still stayed close to the sea and no matter how far away the tides carried the ocean, the waters always found itself back to said cliff. Most people would call it a love-hate relationship but, I don’t believe in hate; just different shades of love.

Our relationship was imperfectly perfect but unacceptable due to reasons I cannot voice out. It was like I was being revived. I went from depressed to overwhelmed in a flash. I lost count of the months, weeks, days and hours that we spent together. It was all an adventure; one which fuelled my almost burned out flame. He didn’t just call me beautiful, he made me believe it for once. With each encounter, each conversation. Each runaway adventure and each unexpected emotional breakdown, I fell a little deeper, a little bit more attached. This wasn’t my intention, wasn’t my plan and it couldn’t occur, not in this manner. So I began to pull away. I always thought I’ll return to my initial standing point regardless of how often I pulled away but this was wrong. Even segments of a cliff get eroded away by the unstable contact between it and the sea. Gradually over time, the distance between them will continue to increase just like the distance between us did eventually. It was always easier to blame it on our circumstance.

“Can’t keep this beating heart at bay”

Imperfectly perfect; Perfectly imperfect. With tears in my eyes and a bunch of jumbled up words in my head, I can’t find the right words to describe this man of mine or how he made me feel. I wish I could.

“You’ll never know the endless nights, the rhyming of the rain
Or how it feels to fall behind and watch you call his name”

As you might have feared, this cliff of mine happens to be close to you. A lot closer that I had hoped. You would think five years is enough time to move on but time is just an imaginary means which humans try to define moments with. What am I trying to say? Five years is just the moment between my happiest point and now. Five years is all the time I’m willing to spend loving someone from afar. With your wedding coming up, I couldn’t possibly show up at the back of the church with the same false ‘I’m fine with this’ smile I’ve had plastered on my face all these years. I couldn’t watch a priest bless your union because we still had a connection. It’s a bit impromptu and a lot to ask from an excited bride to be but, I’d love to reclaim the thing you borrowed from me years ago; the person you now refer to as your lover. I fear that’s the only way I’d ever retrace my direction in life or rediscover that beautiful person he once made me believe I was.

“Set my midnight sorrow free”

However if you’d much rather keep him to yourself, I’ll respect your decision to hold on to an amazing blessing. I was so used to being treated like a woman bought into slavery, I was unaware of how to accept being treated like a queen. I completely understand the confusion that I may have caused. I also understand that sometimes, I “will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in me that cannot die” but more often than none, I wouldn’t get the opportunity to spend the rest of my life with them. Please do take perfect care of my ‘burning fire’

“Just leave your  my lover, leave him for me”

Love,
A
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