Dear Nate,

You said that I haven’t been the same girl who wrote you that poem since I returned from Bali. You were right. She’d gotten a little lost whilst waiting for a safe space to come home to. But she never found it again with you apart from that one week in October where everything felt right.

It was ten days after we’d made up, one week after I’d learned about your caffeine overdose, three days after we’d gotten tipsy on sangrias, and two days after you were my proxy for beer pong.

That was when I wrote you this poem:

“I promise I won’t run from your scars.
Instead, I will hold gently the warmth of your memories in the palms of my hands;
All of your stories, the sound of your laugh, bigger than life itself;
And the endless barrage of emotions that escape your composure,
As I long to take away the pain.

I will place these carefully in a box crafted in your name;
Send them to the address that no one has ever known;
That elusive inner world so rich with life.
So that when you untwirl that ribbon,
You will relearn yourself again for the first time through these eyes.

And when you do, please know that,
I see you in all your cracked perfection.

So please stop pushing me away, because I’m not going anywhere.
Whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun;
Or the nights you collapse into my lap;
Your body broken into a thousand questions,
You are the most exquisite thing I have ever come across.”

Seventeen days later, you confided in me about your disorganised attachment style and that was when I was about to tell you that you had a home in me, if you wanted it. Your story broke my heart, and I didn’t want you to ever have to feel alone again. That day, I thought about how hard the journey ahead might be for us and ultimately, I decided that this was still worth investing in. We seemed to be in alignment when I left your place and you’d said some beautiful things about making space in your life for me. It’s amazing how quickly things can change huh? I think we can forgive ourselves and each other for hoping. Ultimately, it just wasn’t meant to be.

This is being delivered under different circumstances to what I had originally intended but my writing was always meant to be shared with the person it was about. I’m sorry it had to end this way and that we never got the chance to really know each other organically. Maybe ‘backwards’ wasn’t so great after all.

But for what it’s worth: Hello, my name is Estee. I love travelling, spontaneous weekend adventures and trying new things. I get cabin fever if I’m inside for too long and I value personal relationships above all else, because I think connections make life meaningful. I like to take risks and I often speak my truth through poetry cause that’s where I find wonder and inspiration. It was lovely to meet you.

You have taught me some invaluable lessons over the past few months and for that, I am truly grateful. I promise this will be the last time you hear from me and if it’s selfish of me to have sent you this, I hope you can forgive me.

This is how I give myself permission to move on.

– Es

I’ve small hands but big eyes to memorise moments of wonder when I see them sprinkled across deserted sidewalks and everyday crevices.

I’ve gotten used to being on the outside looking in but with you, I feel like I can live out the story that exists within my Imaginarium.

And it’s no less real than my wildest dreams only for the first time, that world has materialised into something tangible in technicolour.

Everything’s been backward but baby I’m starting to think I was just facing the wrong way.

If eternity lasts in circles, then stepping stones don’t matter. And if this isn’t magic, then I don’t know what is.

So take me to the place where the harbour ends and we’ll leave our fears nestled quietly in the soles of our shoes, where they can be forgotten in lieu of a life that could be.

How?

Oh fantasy man, how did you know?
Where my guarded heart was kept,
Underneath the skin of something
So perfectly disguised,
It could have been mistaken for wallpaper.

Perhaps the way you held me, so inviting,
Was just the experience of your years.
But to me, your arms unwrapped the desire
I had lulled to sleep years prior.
The steel fortress I built melting like butter in an instant,
Reminding me of how truly vulnerable I could be
In the presence of another.

And suddenly I was naked for more.

How did you know where to touch me,
If you’ve never known me?

She chases the songbirds that live in the corners of her world and opens her heart to moments. She comes face to face with Love, speculates that it’s been a while, and thanks him for visiting. Love is then bid a tender farewell, for she knows the very nature of him is fleeting and awash with uncertainty. She will welcome him back at any given opportunity so those moments can collect to form part of her private constellation. But she learned that the brightest and most visceral twinkles in her ever-growing galaxy are made up of her and her alone. The other specks only provide nuance to an already spectacular backdrop.

They told me that I was meant for the cleaner life,
that you would drag me through the mud.
They said that you would tread all over me,
that they could see right through you,
that you were full of hot air,
that I would always be chasing, always watching you disappear after sleeker models that would be a vicious cycle.

But I know better.

I know about your rough edges and I have seen your perfect curves,
I will fit into whatever space you’ll let me.
If loving you means getting dirty, bring on the grime,
I will leave this porcelain hole behind.
I’m used to twice a day relationships but with you I’ll take all the time.
And I know we live in different worlds and we’re always really busy,
but in my dreams you spin around me so fast I always wake up dizzy.

So maybe one day you’ll grow tired of the road,
and roll on back to me,
and when I blink my eyes into morning
your smile will be the only one I see.

– Sarah Kay

Who am I to put all of you into a box, vigorously shake your cocktail memories until you are blended into one? One emotion, one descriptor, one word. The flicker of my heartbeat as you resuscitated the part of me I’d waited years to feel alive in again. Inflate and deflate my hope while holding my feelings carelessly between your fingertips, playing with the living child as I slipped further into your treachery.

But I knew no better. The silk of my skin was still intact, unblemished like the pure white of my personal canvas until it was tainted with the toxin of the two headed you. I couldn’t escape, didn’t know how to. Inextricably linked, imprisoned by the view of you yet deluded by the naivety of youth.

I thought it was love. I wonder, did you?

He asked me one December if I’ve ever felt it true. I pondered this a moment, sifted through seven years of carefully filed manilla folders in the libraries of my mind. Oh memory how you’ve reminded me so. Of our first kiss, our bottoms wedged against the small, alternating slats of the garage grate, imprinting thick lines through our clothes. Those same holes forever reminding me of the time I chose not to sink fully into them and disappear into the channels below. Wondering who I would have become without the thorns you so viciously pierced into my soul.

I am lucky they didn’t turn into scars and I got away with bruises that only lasted a short chapter of my story. But time has a way of toying with us when we most want it to progress in measurable cups and spoons. It was a lifetime ago and yet the earth has only completed three orbits of the sun since I closed the chapter on you. I may flick back to your crumpled pages in times of quiet reminiscence but thankfully, you have exited the volume of my lived present.

I am no longer afraid of the unending flurry of question marks that appear before me; each period that follows on from its partnered, curious curve is a reminder of infinity. And I know no matter what, everything will be okay because I am me.

As for the little girl that sits tucked away in the corners of your mind, know that she will always tug at the hem of your dress wanting to chase magical trolls.

I truly believed there was a connection and passion with him that was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in this lifetime. But a man who’s a real Lothario would have played trickster a thousand times before, and another thousand times since. He would know exactly how to make a woman feel special.

And when he disappears without warning after the haze of dreamy lovemaking has subsided, with nothing except the smoky scent of his cigarette-kissed breath lingering on your body, you’re left wondering if any part of it was real. Or if it’s just a night you only dare to dream of again as you touch yourself to the thought of his strong hands grasping your body in untamed desire. The feeling of his tongue inside of you as you remember the way his eyes never left yours.

There’s a reason you never end up with the handsome stranger that swept you off your feet one cool December. Because he’s not real. He’ll materialise when you least expect it, trickle gasoline across the parts of you that lay dormant, and caress you with such intimacy until the fire inside of you reignites with hopeless longing. And just as you’re riding that wave of euphoria, he’ll vanish into the cracks of your memory, and the fantasy that you mistook for reality will be no more.

What incredible destruction he spreads in his wake, while you agonise for hours over your misguided bliss and wasted afflictions. A path of calculated manipulation designed to leave you wanting more. Until you realise the tender plantation he built in your heart, adorned with forehead kisses, the warmth of his body curled up against yours, the flecks of marbled maturity worn into his chestnut hair, and the fire trail his fingertips left as they traced the curve of your spine…well they were just deluded projections from a womaniser too afraid to ever explore the possibility of something real.

My legs are mermaid scales,
My feet buried beneath fine rock crumblings.
In this moment, I feel at one with the earth.
I watch the sea waves billow,
Like a painting alive with momentous energy.
For hours I sit, while the flash penetrates my skin,
Caresses it with painful longing.
We journey through abundant thickets,
Whispers of the wicked willows
Vying for my attention.
In that moment I am transcendental,
The secrets of atomic existence mine.
Moments of private introspection
Take over my consciousnesses
While I gently run my fingers across the fabric that houses me.
My eyes deceive, as layers of this world unfurl.
I am a reduced to a small child,
The kaleidoscope of wonder reigniting in my bones.
And amidst the woodland shimmer, I breathe.

What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seaweed scatters across the sandy plains;

Earth’s reflection shining back at me.

In the sun’s rays, I reminisce;

Thinking of my past, the longing for youthful innocence;

The visiting of old people and places;

To stand there and relive the pain;

Again and again;

As to be human is to feel, to hurt, to ponder.

Hold a flower too tightly in your palms,

And it withers away. 

Watch its beauty from afar, that essence is immortalised.

I’ve often heard of one opening Pandora’s box;

But I think rediscovering Atlantis is a better metaphor;

For Atlantis once existed before it was swallowed by the sea;

Timeless stories woven into its history;

Like the threads of memory embedded into a mortal life.

Dive deep enough and you’ll find all that is forgotten;

But never lost.