FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 524

There is a tension in my jaw. It could be the fear of speaking up. So often we are punished for truth. Yet, if I reside in silence, what will it reveal? I can only guess how you might interpret it.

For a state of not knowing is where I currently remain. Not being able to tell. Instinct melting to confusion. Impetus to paralysis. I have spoken to others before, thinking it right to do so, believing that honesty and openness – vulnerability – would resonate. More like detonate, as it happened. Friendships soured. Abrogated. Warmth bleeding out to frozen distance.

Hence self-doubt. Is there a reason I have been single so long? Is there something I am blind to that others simply cannot look past? What feels like tenderness and connection to me may seem to others like need or desperation or an attempt at control. My signals are scrambled, my language broken. I float the possibility of emotional availability, of love, and I watch as the fragile vessel gets dashed on the rocks.

Yet here we are. On the brink again. Perhaps I will once more be clubbed out of the ballpark; but I will know – and I am used to no. It still stings, but I don’t bleed like I used to. I will merely add you to my trove of bruises. My archive of misplaced faith. The nigh blind leap this letter represents, should I ever have the courage to send it.

Meanwhile…we are still friends. You still answer my calls. I am still welcome in your space. Why do I want more? Do I want more? Words are ephemeral, a fluttering of air, a flickering of pixels. Silence is more enduring. And maybe you don’t need to know…and neither do I.