FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 175

What if I asked you not to contact me again? Would that surprise you?

You must know hard it is for me to play at being friends. Trying to confine myself to the shallows when I have been in the ocean with you is its own curious kind of drowning. I leave you feeling asphyxiated. Every time.

If I was any kind of man I would shrug it off – be thankful you still care – but clearly I’m not. I walk away loving you. Wanting you. Every time.

And then I push a little, to see if I can find a spark, and you back off. Then I retreat, burnt, and you come forward again. And so it goes … two hearts in a loop, never quite touching, never quite breaking. It’s classic.

I wish there was a remedy …

Ah yes, there is. This one. The one that does the least damage to you and gives me a fighting chance. The one I’ve been afraid of.

I will miss you dreadfully. I will wonder every day whether this is right; whether there’s some compromise solution I simply refuse to see. Maybe there is – but I just can’t swallow anymore.

I need to breathe and you need to be free. You owe me nothing, my love – not an atom – but if you could let me vanish … I would thank you forever.

I love you, of course. That’s obvious. That’s why we’re here. That’s why this is the full stop.