Love letter # 154

How much I have not wanted to write this letter. How long I have delayed it. Turned it over in my head – in my gut. But alas, I feel that I need to say this: I can no longer continue. Though I trust you, I also feel that you toy with my feelings – enjoy the dumb, supplicant fact of them – and that you do not, never have and never will, reciprocate.

Naturally, you are allowed not to feel. This I have no issue with, much as it cuts me. My issue is with your behaviour – or rather, my reaction to it.

No more will I sit here, my affections being milked by you for whatever gratification this gives you. No longer will I rise in stupid hope to be slapped by the slamming door. It is a torment I am now refusing to bear on behalf of my absurd, hormonal optimism.

When you flash your smile – your eyes, your cleavage – I will no longer go to water. Because I will not be there to see it.

I am certain you will think me ridiculous in this, but I would rather imagine that acerbic snarl of yours than stumble again into the honey trap you so beautifully set for me.

I stand ready to offer you all the love in the world – but if you will not receive it I will neither force it upon you nor suffer your teasing delight at my reflexive adoration.

Maybe you have not set out to beguile and fool me. Perhaps it is I to whom all the folly belongs. Makes no difference in the end. I cannot stand your loveliness – the way it hovers so near, and then withdraws at the merest touch.

If I was made of stronger stuff I would most likely tough it out – but I am made of longing and impossible hunger – and I will not inflict the spectacle of my pathetic starvation on either of us.

Au revoir, my love. You are wonderful. Far too wonderful for me.