My love,
These words are neither practiced or reiterated. I write them all with a heavy hand, for I know the content that will follow is laced with the things I cannot speak to you. My heart lies beyond these words, and my veins wrap around it's letters. Everything I am can surely be dispelled into the very fibres of this parchment - doused in the scent you remember. Lavender and sage. Please forgive any unruly smudges of ink you may find below, for the tears that will spill and the tremors in my hands are surely attempting to sabotage these unspoken words.
I must begin by mentioning that the person who certainly misses you the most is, of course, Ava. She has asked about you more times than I am able to recall, and my replies are often vague for I cannot seek out the answers she pleads for. I simply do not know how you are. She has specifically requested that I relay one of her drawings onto you. Thus, it will be enclosed inside the envelope too. I do not expect you to understand it at first glance, but the drawing does indeed contain you, and me, and she. And the face in the sky, which represents the babe that we
that I lost.
The thought haunts me. As I'm sure it shall do for you too. An instance of a vile, darker version of myself. A version that even I did not know I could conjure. I turned the blame upon you, dear. But it was never your fault, 'twas I who fell and took away the first chance of normalcy. A relief from our equally dark pasts.
You must understand that since you left, my mind is unable to revert to much else except yourself. Without any kind of agenda.
I try and pretend to forget you, to convince myself that I can be stronger without you here. By my side. To force myself into a life where you no longer exist. Like I am some sort of empowered feminine, who needn't be weighed down by the petty idea of what love beholds. But this silence is monstrous. A deafeningly bitter silence. That leaves me to wonder, in the early hours of the morn, where you are. What you're doing. Which body you lay next to.
Where I lay next to none.
I think about you perpetually, and my life now is a series of highs and lows. Vigorously ricocheting between emotions to try and convince everyone around me that I'm surely fine. Concealing the fact that my heart has created it's final crack and finally crumbled into nothing but dust. Initially, I took to surrounding myself with close friends and loved ones as a momentary release from the memory of you. But when I am alone once more and swamped in the inner-workings of my mind, you are an immediate train of thought that I cannot shake. I can no longer appreciate the gift that life brings: everything remotely positive or joyous that greets me means nothing if it is not experienced with you.
And that is because I love you. I do. With everything that I cannot simply fathom into these silly words. My dear, I love you. 'Tis so true that I could recite it a thousand times and it would still always feel like it was the first.
As though I am trapped in some sort of rewind, I reminisce about what we had to supply myself with the pain of you being far, far away from me. A masochistic life I am now leading. Reliving the fact that you are out from the warmth of my arms, leaving me cold. Alone in the wilderness of your shadow.
But still I see you. I always see you. You are never physically there but I see you lying at the side of the road. Drenched in torrential rain, slumped against a stone wall. Wrists sliced and blood spewing, slithering between the cracks in the cobblestone road. I was the salvation moving through the foggy haze. I was the one to bind your arms with the fabric of my coat and save you. Know now, my love, that I would continue to do so time and time again.
As the Raven, my duty is to swoop down and hoist the Viper out of the fire. I would gladly follow you into the fray. To the ends of the earth. To whatever lay beyond our small existences, in this life. Or the next.
I would give you the air that I breathe, the blood in my veins. The shield of my wings. The shred of willpower that I have left to carry on without your presence. Alone and perpetually taken by the memory of you.
I can feel it. The physical heartache. The verge of tearing up again. A blotchy face, a stuffy nose. Wet lashes, trembling lip. The pain in my chest pines for your equilibrium to be shared with mine. For our souls to intertwine. To feel your touch against my skin - controlled, soft, or rough by the itch of your stubble. The ticklish sensation of my fingernails gliding across taut muscles. Those cerulean windows to your darkened soul, the hazardous spillage of hair falling into your face. I miss you. My heart needs you, I will always need you. I want you on my skin, on my bones.
For the pain will never cease until you're back here.
I knew even then, all that time ago, that you were the one. Eibhan was swift to warn me away from what you could offer. As the handsome rogue that you posed yourself to be, in order to shy away from the broken man inside. But right from the start, before we shared whiskey in the confines of a hip flask. Or before you graced the bed with the familiar contours of your scarred body beneath layers of white sheets. It was destined that you would be my inevitable downfall, the man who would convince me that love was still prevalent after the sour marriage I left behind.
You were a damaged man before, and damaged you will continue to be, but you knew how to love. To understand. To listen and comfort, warmed by your soul. Succumbing now to an uglier fate than the one I would still offer you.
Back then, I knew you were trouble encased in a strapping stature and pretty, foreign eyes. But it was almost magnetic, the sense of being in your presence even before the period of being able to call you 'mine'. The tall, dark stranger with an accent that melted me. A demeanour that was flirtatious, charismatic. Gracing me with a playful gaze which made me realise that I never wanted to be looked at in the same way again by another soul. Just you. Forever.
You are, undoubtedly, the love of my life. A role I thought I would not bestow to anyone so easily. Not after what I had escaped. Because of this, I am scared for you. I am scared as to what you'll do next. To others, to yourself again. You rack my brains, you make me worry. You make me pray for you, as Ava has already insisted every night before she turns in for bed.
My dear, know that I would fall in love with you a thousand times over. Just to experience those sickly sweet butterflies that made my eyes roll or the heat from my blush as you uttered sweet nothings again, and again. The disjointed words tumbling from my lips at the sight of that rugged smile.
If only I could have those numerous chances to never take you for granted, to cherish you and to see you, experiencing you everyday. Giving you everything that I am, for the rest of our lives. Spent together, in a comfortable silence where I could read you with ease. Two minds with the same thing in mind. Rather than this bitter existence, left in the darkest chamber of my thoughts. With none of my suspicions confirmed or proven wrong. Driving me to a quiet insanity, masked around vague hums and closed-mouth smiles.
On the inside, I am dying a slow, cruel death.
We are nothing short of being worlds apart, my love. And you are miles and miles away from me. Metaphorically, literally. I wished for you to come home, I want you here. I want you. Just you. Entirely.
For there will never be another to draw as close and imprint themselves upon me in the same way.
Never a replacement to substitute the man I will continue to love until my dark feathers have finally turned grey.
*The following parchment piece had been crumpled in her palm, wept over silently and finally discarded. The only letter, in her collection, that was almost sent.*
