Unopened Letter
by September Stories

And dear love

This is the fifth time that I've written you today

Or maybe the sixth, after three they tend to all start to blend together

Regardless of the number, the meaning still remains
The ink that I've split onto this sheet is stained with the guilt you carried
From the first week of knowing you

Even those first few words that you uttered out of that entrancing mouth of yours
I took too far to heart

But the realization that they had steadily become rotten was far more than withstandable
No... Convincing myself that what I took for real was just a twisted illusion

And that your words could be held with some sense of meaning…

Was far easier to withstand
You see, I just wanted to act like I had a perfect life, like we were perfect, like nothing else in the world could be anymore perfect

But I guess I'll never get that

And maybe it was my illusion of perfection
Or how that word was engraved in my brain every time you'd look at me with that relentless stare
That haunting, creeping stare that I so loathed

But I didn't loathe it enough to not let it ensnare me
Though I knew of the branches' thorns
I let it wrap itself around me

Drawing blood with every inch that it covered
With every limb that it captured and claimed its own

I let it creep and crawl its way around me
Until I had nothing left to call my own
Which made the cutting of the branches that much harder

Pieces of me trapped between the thorns
Tearing apart and leaving the hollow being that I like to call a body

Cause that's all that was left
It's like the lights were on and the water was running
But I couldn't have been any further gone

Scared, scraped, and just remnants of what I once was
Left to rot and wither as the branches claimed what they thought rightfully there's
Moving on to the next with no less sympathy than the last

For months I tried to hate, tried to resent, tried to forget
But I end up laughing instead

I know that you're the last person I should want to see, but it's just not that way to me
Because every time I look at the scars you left covering the undersides of my arms

I only see the beauty that once was
I only see the times we enjoyed, and not the times that we regret
The times you left me star struck and teary eyed and not broken and alone

Please God I just wish you had poured meaning into the word we call "love"
Made it more than a word, at least that's how it was to me

Even after I've picked out every last thorn that's dug itself neck deep into my skin
I can't toss them into the flames like every photo from when I once knew you
Because the pain it reminds me

I wish I'd known what you had wanted
Wanted all along
Thought you wanted me, my heart on my sleeve
I had thought wrong

I wish I'd known what you had wanted
Wanted all along
Though you wanted me, my heart on my sleeve
I had thought wrong

I wish I'd known what you had wanted
Wanted all along
Thought you wanted me, my heart on my sleeve
I had thought wrong

I wish I'd known what you had wanted
Wanted all along
Thought you wanted me, my heart on my sleeve
I had thought wrong

I wish I'd known what you had wanted
Wanted all along
Thought you wanted me, my heart on my sleeve
I had thought wrong

I wish I'd known what you had wanted
Wanted all along
Thought you wanted me, my heart on my sleeve
I had thought wrong

I Wish I knew.

Contributed by Mackenzie W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.