Clarity. As the years drone on and I more thoroughly understand the intricacies of this world, one thing has become apparent. I know nothing. Through this phase (for I hope wholeheartedly that this is a passing time which will be seen as a pinnacle character building element) there have been many disappointments that have reminded me that I am still alive. For so long, the belief that this all consuming hollowness was bred from my lack of sight that what I did all those years ago ended differently and I truly was a wraith walking the earth. Not until finally letting the hot letters on my too small screen settle deep within my veins, searing through me so completely and allowing the fog behind my eyes to clear, had I realized this form must be made of flesh and bone. That everything I did that night was nothing because this was truly dying.

Every day. You talked every day. Picked up the phone for a year and a half, maybe more with others, every day. Could get on a flight somewhere meant for more than just memory making with your friends. Somewhere intimate. Be there. In support. In person. The revelation of your capabilities being beyond what had been demonstrated to me was jarring, I can admit that much.  Something that was the most complicated to come to terms with was that you could carry on baring yourself so fully while disguising the shadow beneath. Until you gave me another element to discover. That even as you butchered me and stood above my corpse, your concern wasn’t with the throbbing agony you gifted me, but instead in making sure I would cradle her gentle mind. Ensure to provide her tools to solidify her place in nourishing your fragile heart because, if we’re ready for that conversation, the three of us at once shared the idea that my hecatomb was necessary to flourish your future together. That in finally piecing your poorly laid clues I tried to ignore, the only outcome would be this. Because for me, you couldn’t pick up the phone and call or at least stay on long enough when I could. You wouldn’t.

My fault lies in never filling you fully with my attention. That prodding you to continue the conversation, to give me more than just an answer and maybe push the correspondence further, deeper, would only ever lead to days of silence. Within those moments had you ever thought of me? Truly thought of me? Of the fragile details within my world that had been laid at your feet. The care and delicate touch you pantomimed as my body ate itself, shredded what I thought was left of me. I lived within delusions of a future, believing you had been alongside me. Not realizing where I truly was, stumbling unescorted and sightless among the forest floor. Couldn’t have even been a second thought to you.

Through your iniquities you have enlightened me, allowed me to no longer hold this love in hope of love. It was never nor would ever have been gratified, because perhaps I had filled the gaps of your apathy with implied anxiety. That the projections of my own anxious behaviors were offered, involuntarily, to benefit the fantasy that you were just as disquieted to flay your tender soul beneath the sunlight once more for fear of burning through your final layer of assurance as I had been.  

I’m rambling. 

I apologize that in searching for clarity, in trying to stitch together the portrait of you that had been painted in the labyrinth of my mind with the revolting truth of your actions, of who you truly are, that I may have intruded upon your peace. Was it ever a consideration of yours that perhaps my affections were sincere and, though it may have been difficult to place within the bounds of your daydreams of what you wanted to do to me, that I was once human too? Or was the carnival of fabricated affection you portrayed so bedazzling that you had blinded yourself to the depths of your betrayal, its depravity? With all sincerity, as my reality and ideals and credence begin to burn around me, I wish you every happiness through this life and the next.