Thread: Love Letter to a girl...hope this works! (small amount of Language)

Why hello there. If you're reading this, which I must assume you are, you've stumbled upon what I intend to make a diary of sorts. You see, I'm growing older and I've finally begun to feel it. The vigor of youth has vanished and all I'm left with are the sweet smelling vapors that it left behind. Tiny motes of sparkling brilliance; a memory here, a face there, the glowing embers from the fire of my life. I don't want to admit it; but, I know that the end will come. I know that I can't last forever and to be honest, I don't think I would want to. If I were to live life eternal, I would be liable to forget my past. It would weigh me down, biting and clawing at the inexorable march of time. I don't want to do that. I want to gather each scintillating mote, each gorgeous memory and clasp them tight to my side. I want to remember the perfect days and the fairytale nights, the times when the words past and future didn't mean anything. When there was only now... and now theres only then. Those fleeting moments, those ephemeral days of wonder, if only I could have seen myself now, perhaps they would have lasted longer. But ah! I'm rambling. I've got a story to tell you and let me tell you this, it doesn't have a single word of untruth. Not one falsehood. It might sound as though I exaggerate; but, even in my increasing age these memories still strike me with that wild fluorescence of lightning and that somber, bittersweet din of thunder. It was 1973. We had a summer to remember.

Why am I always late to school? Each morning I wake up to the familiar buzz of my alarm clock only to fall back to sleep, daring dreams return. They glide back to my head; on tiptoe they twist and twirl, a cascading pirouette shrouded by the folds of blankets. I can feel myself waking up. Peering out over the edge of reality to glimpse the misted tendrils of imagination. I leave this place unfulfilled and unanswered. Stunned by the cold brevity of what had once seemed so wildly expansive; but, I have to leave. One can't dream forever can they? I don't suppose I could dream forever, though if I did...would it really be a dream at all? Would I want to leave? I always ask these silly questions when I wake up. What business do I have dreaming my life away? I should be busy dressing. It's my last day of high school and I should look the part.

There was never a time that walking through those glass double doors felt so final, so bone-crushingly conclusive. As though someone had begun slicing away at the tethers that bound me to everyone I had ever known. I saw my best friend pass in the hall. A thin smile cut into his face, time slowed to accommodate me every detail as his body turned, his shoulders slumped, and his expression faded. As it vanished, the air of happiness was replaced with a withered frown, an acknowledgement of something within us. We all knew that something was happening, something deep within us all. Something that had happened to those who came before us and will happen for those after us. We were being stripped of each other and no one was there to stop it. The bonds we had so perilously fought to maintain, steeled in the fire of love we had for one another were being broken. I wanted to scream; but, couldn't. I wanted to grab onto everything I now loved so dearly and squeeze it until it became a part of me, welded to the spot where this horrible longing now sat tugging at the bottom of my heart. There wasn't anything anyone could do. We walked the halls shell shocked as smiles transformed to the blank expression of our bleak horizons. A bomb had gone off and we were the shrapnel. Scattered to every corner of mans dominion, divided from the collective experience that had hitherto shaped and nourished us all. Those who were happy didn't realize we were saying good bye yet. Those who were sad knew better than to show it.

My English teacher that year was a balding fool whose crowning achievement seemed to be making girls cry for fear of failure; but, man he could talk about life in the most eloquent and intricate ways. When he would lose his air of arrogance and sarcasm, when he would really talk to you, you couldn't help but listen. Each word was a note in the morose reiterative elegy of his life, a clarion expression of “I understand”. I'd been close to him all year; but, I hope I wasn't the only one who noticed. After class that day, when all the reminiscing and smiles were done, and everyone had finished scribbling their final “keep in touch” or “best friends forever” in their yearbooks, he told me to come with him to his office. He had noticed that I was despondent-more than usual-and he wanted to talk to me. Secretly I was glad. I wanted him to tell me what I had to do. I wanted him to unlock the hidden secrets he had to earn through experience and wear them like a blanket, a shield against the frost that so badly ached to blow through my bones. Would he tell me? I sat there in front of him, nervous for the first time, as he sat down with a smile gashed across his face. We talked for a while. About poetry and music and literature, everything I didn't care about in this moment, slowly meandering our way towards what we both knew we were there for. I asked him if I could ask him something-something personal. “Mr. McCarthy, I don't know if everyone is going through this, or if I'm weird or abnormal or whatever; but, I can't seem to get over how sad the end feels. I like high school. I like the people I'm surrounded by and I don't think anyone could ever have as much significance as they have. What am I supposed to do? How can I leave when I know that I'm not being followed, when I know that I'm being abandoned-were all being abandoned. Each and every one of us complicit in some fucked up agreement to leave ourselves bereft. How can I-”. Ryan, God knows I can't tell you what to do. Real life isn't made up of analogies and allegories. It isn't meant to be lived vicariously or fast tracked. You have to go out there and grab it. You need to find that place inside of you, that dark resonant chamber within your heart where sadness rebounds and fill it. Fill it with the love from those you love. Fill it with the moments that you share together. Don't let the sadness echo in there, don't let it grow, because if you do, you too will fade away-along with the memories. I left his office for the walk home confused and on the verge of tears; but, I knew what I had to do. I had to suck the marrow out of life. I had to find that dark resonant chamber in my heart, where the threnody lies, and drown it out. I had to figure out what it wanted. It was 1973. We had a summer to remember.

As I left the school noticeably shaken, I let the glass double doors slam for the last time- half expecting them to shatter, crying for my disappearance. I took the scenic route home, ambling past the railroad tracks, shuffling through the verdant corridors of our rural community. It was all so surreal. I'd walked along these streets so many times before and this was the last time? I thought it would be fitting to commemorate the occasion; but, I couldn't think of how... I just knew I wanted to. It felt like knowing it was your last time driving a car before it died. Your first car. The car your Dad gave to you. The car you spent hours working on and polishing. Wouldn't you want the end to be special? The final ride? I relinquished my thoughts as I wheeled around the corner of Lark St. and saw her walking along the road.

To my astonishment there she was, joining me as we connected to the same block, flagging me down with a wave of her hand. Her name was Katherine and she was beautiful. Her brown hair blew in the wind as she tried to catch me up- as she exuded this sort of contained craziness that's probably too difficult for me to describe. She was the kind of beautiful that not everyone could see. It was like it was a secret to me and no one else knew. No one else could see the way her eyes shone in the sunlight, two radiant pores of brown etched on her gorgeous face. No one else could see the way she would tilt her head and smile. Sometimes that silly half smile that let you know she was on the verge of laughter and other times her face would just light up. Glowing with a beauty she'd never accept, and always deny. She couldn't see it either; but, I didn't care. I liked my secret. I liked that no one else knew her the way I did.

She had been in my English class and we would often exchange glances, a smile here, a subtle flirtation there...I even wrote her a poem once; but, it never manifest into anything. Truthfully I'd never had the vitriol to tell her how I really felt. I should have told her long before this moment how I felt for her. I should have found what I wanted in life and grabbed it. I should have grabbed her hand and embraced her, letting go of all my self-consciousness and all my insecurity. We were on the verge of college and remembering Mr. McCarthy's words, I became resolute in my decision.
“Hey”, she said.
“Hi”, I returned, in the quiet, pensive tone she'd always known me to use.
“I can't believe its all over and summers already here...pretty soon we'll all be in college”.
“I know-Hey listen, I was just uhh, well I was just thinking about you know a lot of things recently and...well do you remember that poem I wrote you? She nodded her head in approval. The one I wrote about how beautiful I thought you were and the ocean and the rain...well at the time I thought it was enough; but, its not. It'll never be enough. There will never be a way for me to explain to you how strongly I feel and I just- I don't know- I feel empty. I feel unfulfilled. I feel like theres some giant mystery that we never unravelled that we should have- that we'll regret it if we never do. I can't go on to abandon all of my friends and leave you behind without at least telling you how I feel. That you're gorgeous and funny and cute and smart and sexy. That those words lack definition when they find themselves in your midst. That I could truly go through my whole life without finding these same feelings for another. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to look back and see what could have been. I want to see the sunrise and share secrets with you. I want to figure out what these feelings I have are- and what they mean- and if theres something more there. I want us to watch the ocean and read poetry in whispers; as wave upon wave crash down on the beach, shaping and sifting the soil and shoreline. Silently shifting the sand. She looked at me, and with a tiny smile that hardly showed said, “Okay”.

We walked around town for a while before deciding to head to a beach nearby. The entire time I taunted her with silly flirtations which she dismissed as untrue; deep down she must have known there was something there. I was awfully poetic with her and I can't really explain why. I'd never felt the desire, or had the ability to speak or write about anyone else in the same way. Sometimes I thought she didn't like it, that it was too over the top; but, it was a terrible urge to resist. Those feelings needed an outlet. I was genuinely happy to be around her, contented out of what seemed like mere proximity. I'd forgotten about the fact that in two months everyone I knew would be off to college, forgetting about each other, forging new futures in the fires of old pasts. I wouldn't let her be a part of that fire.

As we got to the beach it had just started to grow dark, the sun blotted the horizon a hazy shade of pink and red as it sank beneath the waves. I brought a copy of my favorite book to class that day to read during study hall and I still had it with me; but, it wasn't time for that yet. We walked along the beach holding hands, letting the waves lap at our feet while we enjoyed the cool summer breezes. And we talked. We talked for ages, sometimes about everything, other times about nothing. We talked about life and what our plans were... we even talked about death. I can't remember exactly what was said; but, she told me that she wanted to be cremated in the most poetic of ways. I think she just didn't like the idea of being buried. Something about being trapped didn't appeal to her, she was meant to be free. Roaming the Earth for all to see. Maybe that was her way of smiling her gorgeous smile one last time. I don't know, I never asked.

As sunset turned into fading twilight, the silvery luminescence of the full moon reflected off shards of beach glass. We leaned back against a wooden fence that traversed the beach and I began to read from Looking For Alaska. One moment I had just started reading and the next, the tide had started to lick at our feet. I didn't want to move and neither did she. I motioned to pull her back; but, she grabbed my hand and said she didn't mind. I kept reading and the tide kept coming in. Up to our feet, then our legs,-soon we were being soaked up to our thighs, caressed by the soft waves and then beckoned forth into an endless sea of darkness. Thinly laid upon the water were sheets of moonlight, tangled up in the folds of the waves which frothed at how we dared challenge them. I read aloud in a steady voice, accentuated by the soft staccato of sand dragged by undertow, as I reached her favorite passage.
“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”
As I finished she laid back and pulled me in close next to her. I wrapped my arms around her as the waves wrapped their arms around us both. I had found that dark resonant chamber within my heart. It was 1973. It was a summer to remember.