"A Love Letter for the End of Days"

Hey you, I hope you’re well.

You’ve been on my mind.

There are so many things I wish I could ask lately.

I think about the early days a lot,

all the ways I acted,

self-destructive, forceful, and sick,

hungry for your time in ways you didn’t want to give it,

hungry for you in ways that weren’t meant for me.

I know I’ve apologized in the past,

but pangs of those memories still stir up within me

and the shame and regret make me want to curl up inside of myself.

I’ve never told you this,

but I didn’t feel like I was good enough for you then,

and in my own perceived deficiency,

I was constantly afraid to be fully human.

Not eating, afraid to be grotesque;

not sleeping, afraid to snore or thrash and disturb you.

I wanted to live as a beautiful doll,

without imperfection,

an impossible task for someone you didn’t find beautiful in the first place,

and you had already seen far worse flaws in than simple humanity.

I often wonder,

would it have gone differently if I were well in that phase?

It’s a question I know is unanswerable.

It’s one sided and one dimensional,

as if you weren’t a complex being all your own,

working things out for yourself.

I do wish I understood why I was deemed

good enough to fuck,

but not good enough to love.

I felt like an understudy in your life,

The “friend” you’d call to fill a void

when whoever you wanted wasn’t available.

I’d come running,

wanting to make you feel good,

always there to show you that you were lovable.

I think about the good days a lot too,

the moments where I could have sworn love mutually lived;

in the laughter and the play,

you writing little songs for me,

and slurping your beer out of my hands in the bar,

wrapping your arms around me while I cried on the porch,

and driving me home when I wasn’t capable of caring for myself.

You came to the hospital even when we hadn’t spoken in weeks,

and told me that both I and we were going to be okay,

but those were words to a dying woman,

not promises for the future.

I was okay, but we were not.

I’ve been furious with you.

After I told you I loved you the first time,

you didn’t want things to progress any further,

you didn’t feel the same way.

You should have just let me go.

I tried to go.

Over and over and over, I tried,

but you continued to hand me these crumbs of affection,

reeling me back in like a starving animal.

Whether you meant to or not,

that gave me hope for change that wasn’t ever going to come,

the love seeped deeper into the cracks of my heart with every fracture and attempted repair.

Even now, with a shattered heart,

I still care for you.

I miss the smell of coffee in the middle of the night, the smoke in your hair, the dog on your bedsheets.

I miss your brilliant, encyclopedic mind,

how you inexplicably knew something about everything.

I miss how intent you were to show me every piece of media you loved,

to catch me up on all I missed, and the verbal play by plays you’d give me when my eyelids got heavy.

I miss your voice in all its forms,

and the way your nose and shoulders simultaneously scrunch when you laugh.

I like to believe there is a version of us, somewhere out there, that ended up both together and functional,

It’s a simple fantasy of a home, grocery shopping, errands;

an idyllic place where, with you, I cherish the parts of life people dread,

and where you also cherish me.

We’re both good enough,

and we’re both good.

I’m still angry,

and I’m still so sad,

but I can’t say that to you,

so I say it here as a whisper into the void.

I truly hope you’re happy.

I hope you’re healthy.

I hope you feel loved.

I failed you often,

and I loved you fully.

I’m sorry for both.

Ophira Odem