my first letter to you here

 Oh my Love

It's been so long since I've really really cried about missing you.

I wish you were here. I wish you weren't gone.

I feel like I dont know how to talk to you anymore... like saying this is all an act for a future self of me and I'm not sure if I used to talk to you the same way that I'm writing. (and YES, it does matter... to anyone else reading. The distinction matters. Though He  wouldn't need to have been told that. He would intrinsicly understand that.)

My Love... how am I ever supposed to have a 'normal' life without you?
I ache for you. 

I know that, objectively I suppose, that life is 'better' because I dont have our conbflixt to deal with or your issues to hurt me (or mine to hurt you, to be fair)

But.... I just wish you could be here. You. The real you... the one I loved endlessly. The one who caused the world to stop when we really kissed. Just soft lips touching and the world.... would pause. I ACHE for you. That soul who I lay next to that day before rushing to the bus in Stellies. The One who asked me to join him to a trip to hartebeespoortdam that one time cos you had a delivery. Who started a WHOLE blog for me and learned to play guitar and who... who chose the name Lexi.

I want to hold your hand again. feel the perfect way our fingers interlocked. How our bodies always just fitted together.

I miss your smile. That warm smile that almost felt painful it was so filled with relieved joy each time you waited for me to walk out of the airport doors.... and how my heart paned so stroongly when it was you coming through them and I had to wait.

I miss you I miss you I miss you.

Putting my hand through that window, clutching my wrist too afriad to check the cut in cause an artery was severed... that was the first time that I realized that I actually do want to live. That I'm not ready to die. I've been to indifferent to death for so long. Almost feeling "so what" if I lost control of the car or something.

Because you just vanishing into the void just... I mean. Just. Why do I even matter? You're the only one who ever really saw me, Noticed me. Thought me worth the effort. Until I wasn't.

And there it is. THe tinge of bitterness. THe reason I've maybe been able to not cry for so long.

But tonight. Going for pizza at hanging rock. Remembering you, and that first night we found it and went there - it was even before we lived here. We were still in Gordon's Bay.

And it was a cold winter's evening. We'd had a lot of things to work through that day, we'd sat at the beach in Pringle. You'd almost walked back to Gordon's alone. We ended being ok. Things selling and just being back to loving each other.

I was half frozen though. And we went to Hanging rock. They'd closed, but let us in for a quick little drink of sherry. I went to the backthoom to try clean up the tears and you talked to them.

They remember you. Or Karin remembers the accident. Apparently she was there. She gave me a hug. I dont remember. Maybe I was in worse shape than I realized.

I started crying there tonight. It's probably the first time real tears came up like that for you in front of others.

(I so badly wish I could cry. really cry. and that someone could just hold me. and let me cry.
But the only person I want for that is you. I want to cry with YOU. But I can't. Because you're gone. You can't ever hold me again.

I remember that morning, listening to you cry on the couch. Those big, deep sobs.
I'm sorry I didn't hold you. That I couldn't. How many other nights did you lie alone and cry?

Please forgive me.

I love you.

I will ALWAYS love you.

my soul is in tatters withouy you and I can't imaginbe another life without you. I can't imagine ever feeling whole. Or finding true comfort. A place that feels like home the way that you did.

That's it: I loved you because you were home.

You were always home. 

My memory can pull up memories that run like a music video: seeing you that first winter's morning, the smile on your face when you heard my name. Walking home from the bus together. How you hated being touched, but didnt mind me. That day you followed me home... first sneakily hurrying to drop your bag then catch up. "I wouldn't do that" or something like that you called out. Giving me a heart attack as I tried to pick autum leaved to press. (I've always assumed you said it cos my school skirt was pulling up as I streched. But I'm not sure. And its just another thing that I can never KNOW because I can never ask you and you can never tell.) I rememer that that was the day I realized that Id have to pay close attention to what you said, to tell fabrication from truth. But I didn't mind. It wasn't malicious. Somehow not even dishonest, now that i think of it. It was simply not true. And that was ok.

memory since moving to the cape is largely empty. the few things recorded arent good. There must be good things...Bu't I'm still working through tryng to only recall not good things.

Haha, remember when Mom and Dad found out that you were with me? Dad called and you answered the landline and pulled the weirdest posh British accent, panicking. The look on your face as you put down the phone was hilarious. I'm actually chuckling now despite the tears. Of course he knew it was you...

And there were all the times going places on the bike. I can't remember them, but I know that those were always good. I was always comfortable and felt at peace behind you. 

You. So solid. So real.

now you're just dust. literally.
And I'm not allowed near you.
I dont know if I'll even be allowed to be near when they set your ashes free... that's if they havent already.

Sweetthing.... I'm trying so hard not to be angry with your family.

shit... I've sidetracked completely. started writing a letter to your parents. I want to know why. WHY THE FUCK THEY'VE TRATED ME LIKE SHIT., what the hell changed

why does it matter being near your remains?

i dont know. it doesn. it just does.

it matters. and my soul is being driven mad.

i need healing. but theyve taken away what i need. I need him. or to be allowed near him.

i need to sit with his remains. just like i needed to touch him. 

why? i dont know. i jyst do.

the thought of his remains being scattered without me there.... without them being in knysna, tears at me. 

its almost like a physical pain.

so it DOES matter.

I want to know what changed. 

Why did it go from 'we want to get there and hold each other' to we ant nothing to do with you.

What changed. WHY.

-----------

sorry sweet thing.

i'm a mess. i miss you. i wish you were here so that we could avoid the world together.

i'm sorry for all the times i was harsh and narcassistic and just.... im sorry.

i wish id been able to be someone you felt you could just be you with. without any masks. i wish you'd told me everything... and i meanm everything. that youd shared this dark struggle. instead of hiding it.

could i have saved you?

im sorry i didnt check that letter earlier.

i was just thiking that i couldnt have. beecause your post only went live when it was too late.
but if i had checked your phone. found that video....

i just shouldnt have let y go. because i already knew.

i knew you'd be gone.

.... did you go there? to her. on your way to go round the mountain?
Ive never thought of it.
Maybe you did. And whatever you told her she told them and thats why....
but no. Because Nadine said that she had accused me of running you off the road. which is the more likley story of why they wanted to hurt me. she said that Z had has M and i could track each others phones so i would have tracked him and thats how I hit him?

----

again, there goes me brain. being pulled towards that vortex of trauma like being caucht in the current of a whirlpool. was interesting to realise just now that id started talking to you as 'him', because I was talking to myself there, not to you.
is this how I used to talk to you?
I'm charging my phone now. I want to listen to voice notes of you.

I miss you.

whereever you are, if you can know this:

konow that I love you. my darling sweet love.

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