To be convinced of your unworthiness, to make yourself smaller, to degrade oneself to the point of oblivion for the sake of an unattainable love. Your love for them becomes bigger than you, your sun eclipsed by an alien moon. To be silently devoted, waiting for your feelings to be reciprocated, for they must, as in the stories you hear, they always are.
Being fervently independent to prove you are more than your desire, to allow your want to exist only in your thoughts. Only for the love you desired so deeply, which meant so much to you, to be but a passing moment in your unknown beholder’s eye.
They never thought of you as you think of them,
full of infatuation, you remain young, mysterious, scared to show them what’s behind the curtain, scared to reveal the farce you have created. You would have to come clean; maybe they would no longer look at you the same.
To them, your face could belong to anyone, for he cannot remember from whence you came;
it is spring again now, not the illustrious winter, where one can imagine the beauty that will come. Only they do not realise spring is sitting in front of him, the spring he dreamed of all those winters ago, wishing to be acknowledged.
For what they have done is what men do, fantasise, look, be captivated by some beautiful “thing”, and they must be beautiful and they must be “thing” as anything more is no longer mysterious, too complicated, too real.
Even in your final encounter, you are unable to confess, you realise this has all been moot, instead you keep this “love” you hold in rose garden thoughts, keep your desire burning, at least then it has some meaning.
On your deathbed, one final devotion, your Sacrament of Penance, finally, they shall know and they shall understand. It is a beautiful sunset you don’t have to witness; you can close your eyes one last time and imagine their love pouring out for you as you have imagined countless times before. Freed from bearing witness, from your love seeing you for who you are, you and your imagined unworthiness.
They will never love as you have loved, for they have lived, lived with a wandering eye, and you have lived, lived in fear of being seen.
If this letter reaches you, believe this - That I love you now as I have always loved you. My life can be measured by the moments I’ve had with you and our child. If only you could have shared those moments….if only you could have recognised what was always yours…. could have found what was never lost …. if only