Letters to the Void

Double void photo courtesy of Auburn University Plasma Sciences Laboratory

Debate whether or not to send this. Read. Re-read. Re-read again. Watch as your fingers tremble over the keyboard. Wonder why they’re doing that. Lack of sleep? Caffeine withdrawal? Fear?

Fuck fear. Hit send. Wonder what these words do when someone else reads them on a screen, filters them through their own consciousness, experience, life. Stop thinking about it; it’s so selfish, self-centred. So very you. Get over yourself. Wonder what it means to be a good person, anyway. Wonder why you always seem to be the one who cares more, who lets herself get swindled, who wants the sharp edge pressed against her throat, making every moment count.

Wonder why nothing ever means anything until you write it down and hit send.

Perhaps it’s time I cared about someone new. I always tell myself that I should take the risk, make the leap of faith, allow myself to be hurt if that’s what it takes to find what I’m looking for. I have recently taken a chance with love; it turned out to be futile.

Obsession, a friend says, is the dark side of passion. It is the thing you want because you fear to lose it. I do not feel anxious or scared when I am with my imaginary boyfriend. Perhaps this is love. The real sort, not the Dollar Store blaze in which you proclaim your feelings will never die. That is nonsense. We only have these moments, these fragments. We only have what we make. We can only build with the available materials. He is my available material. Shall I not use him?

I wonder what he gets out of this. I fear I will break his heart, if he still has one to break. I wonder if he is fragile beneath his gruff exterior that urges me to throw him through a table. He often says, “shit happens, people die.” It threw me off at first, the violence of the statement. Gradually, I adopted it. The callous proclamation. The shocking statement.

He is like that, always throwing me off balance. But I push back, and maybe that is all he really wants. Someone who cares enough to push back, who refuses to let his words echo down empty halls.

He is direct. He is sleepless. He is kind. He is so many things that I never see. He is so fucking far away, and his car is a piece of shit, but he promised to drop by someday. Out of nowhere, he will appear on my doorstep, the way I have always dreamed someone might do. He will ring my bell. He will be glad to see me, having come all this way. He will wrap me in his arms, kiss me softly, take my hand. Is that not love? What else is there? Why do I always want something more, something that does not exist?

Just hit send. Let every word disappear from your screen as though you never wrote a thing. Let someone else try to determine the value, the worth. Let someone else reveal their soft belly for a change.