an open letter

to you. not so open in the end, considering that it is directed at those people in my life committed to distance and trepidation in their relationships with me... and finally to you, who is not confused at all, and who hates the distance between us.

first, I suppose, is you; you whom i loved from the beginning, whom i adored like a shining brother, with the exception that i wished to kiss you and hold you close and keep you warm in bed beside me forever. your melancholy impressed me with its depth and conviction, the artistry that flowed from it so thoughtlessly I envied. i was never so genuinely creative, and have not grown into such a person, either. i deeply craved my nights with you, after long train rides to meet your chaste embraces at beachside stations, and afternoons laughing with friends in the ardor and mania of adolescence.

those nights in your bed, our bodies matched in the blankets of flannel and desire, were what i waited for, what i imagined when I lay alone. your hands the soft parts of me, heat from you radiating, penetrating me, my love for you allowing this unspoken violation, hopinghopinghoping that in the morning your attention towards me would have changed, that our public embraces at beachside stations would become less chaste in the context of a shared love...

but years passed and your gaze never shifted. more beautiful women warranted your attentions, my friends in fact, but you never saw me as you saw them. in our young adulthood you found shame in the way you treated me and apologized, yet my adoring attention still allowed you to exploit my desire for your love. you were the beginning of all this, the start of my obsession with the unrequited.

much later you came along. strong jawed and cynical, your figure solid against the wood of the bar, your smile easy and winning; you stood strong at the center of your community, amongst others transcending categories so easily applied. you were powerful, in both personal and actual ways; established, political, respected.

one evening on the wharf with our mutual friends we sat around a table, impressing each other carefully with language and analysis and eye contact, i felt you keenly next to me, watching me. we spoke of our families, shared characteristics between us; politics and friends, and sometimes of sports (which i spurned for its violence yet you loved for its competition). we left the restaurant and you grabbed me, kissed me, held me close to your chest tight with its bindings, your hands firmly on my back is a feeling i will never forget. i ran, you chased me, we insisted on each other.

after two weeks i had ended all other dating endeavors and fallen deep into the well of you. we spent hours and hours in my bedroom on the hill, our harsh and fervent fucking making paper of the rest of the world, easily crumpled and thrown into the corner. i was warm and safe in your embrace, and there i forgot about time, i forgot about my friends, i forgot about work and writing and activism, all i knew was you. i fell in love with you in a way i had never loved before. you, however, did not love me; or perhaps you were not willing to love me.

when you left me it was as if my clothes were taken and burnt, i was left naked and shocked in the scathing truth of your absence. it was not real, it felt as if there was no way it was true, that it was impossible for reality to shift so radically, so decidedly, so quickly. your power and presence in the community made me avoid it, i shunned myself in order to avoid you and the pain the sight of you would bring. I studied the marks you left and quietly decided to never love a woman in the same way again.

now, we come to you. it seemed casual to me, at first, your interest in me both odd and obvious in its strategy, your intoxicated escapades of rhetoric compelling, boring and predicable all at once. it was as if you were both trying to impress me and ignore me in the same interaction, and in this it was as if i had returned to a high school context-- where the boys try to pretend that they have no feelings, and that their affections don't exist, and instead go to extended lengths to disguise their attraction with disinterest, if not outright disdain. funny that your mantra, in the beginning, was "we're all adults here." it contradicted the other statement, which was "i don't want anyone to know," which thrust us-- me, unwilling-- back into that place of adolescent dramatics.

for all that awkward fits-and-starts of ours, however, i began to have feelings for you i didn't expect. in those afternoons on top of covers in both of our rooms, quietly endorsing each other with wrapped arms and covert kisses, marked with extended forays into discussions both deeply personal and deeply political both at once and distinct, amidst statements both careful and rash about our possible future together, our connection became clear to me, at least. you pulled back, after a time, afraid and preoccupied, and still i am compelled toward you and confused by your confusion. i know you want me-- you say it, occasionally, for me to hear and remember, perhaps to make sure i still care, they are easy comments requiring no real commitment on your part-- and that you do not know how to move toward me. in that i cannot remove you from my thoughts, and you plague me. i know you think about me, contemplate our connection, and it infuriates me that you cannot acknowledge it.

here and now there is yet another person, this one carrying a theme of my life with him as he steps through my existence with intention and objective: me, my love and his intertwined, our lives together. he is striving to be my love for the rest of our lives, and presents himself completely; there is no hiding, no trepidation, the complete person, obfuscated only by his own pain and history-- like the rest of us.