dear you i wrote this at 1am and i’ll delete it at 2 like every other night
UNSENT
Letters Never Sent
words that stayed in the drawer
Read it in the room, by lamplighti typed ‘i miss you’ and watched it sit there for twenty minutes before i let it die in the text box
if you ever read this it means i finally stopped being afraid of you knowing
dear you i saw your mom at the store she hugged me like nothing happened and i let her
i still have a draft from three months ago it just says your name and nothing i could say after it
p.s. i kept the playlist i just renamed it so it stops saying our names
you asked if i was okay i said yeah this is the longer version
dear you i hope she laughs at the same parts of the movie i did
there are things i never told you not because they were secrets but because you never asked
i wanted to text you happy birthday i wrote it six times even the shortest one felt like too much
dear you i walked past our bench today someone else was sitting there and the world didn’t even pause
this is the letter where i forgive you i’m not sending it because forgiving you was for me
i don’t want you back i just want you to know i was not as fine as i looked
dear you i finally washed the mug you used it took me until march
i never said goodbye because i thought goodbye was something we’d both have to agree on
if i sent this you would read it in four seconds it took me a year to write
dear you i’m doing better i just wanted someone to know that it was hard
i almost called you when my grandma died because for a while you were the person i told things to first
dear you i still sleep on my side of the bed like i’m saving the other side for a ghost
i hope you’re happy i mean it i just don’t want to watch
dear you i read our messages from the beginning we were so careful with each other back then
some nights i write you whole paragraphs and in the morning i only keep the ‘hey’
i’m not writing this to get you back i’m writing it so i can finally put you down
dear you you’d love the song that’s stuck in my head that’s the whole problem
i never told you that you were the reason i stayed that winter
dear you i changed your name in my phone to just your initial like that makes it smaller
if you ever think about me please let it be the summer version not the one at the end
dear you i’m sorry for the things i said and for the things i should have
i still write ‘we’ sometimes and have to go back and fix it to ‘i’
dear you they asked me about my worst heartbreak and i said i don’t know it was a lie with your name on it
this letter has no ending because every time i get there i start missing you again
dear you i hope someone finally holds you the way you needed i just wish it could have been me
i kept every note you ever left me even the grocery lists especially the grocery lists
dear you i’m not angry anymore i’m just quiet
you told me ‘don’t write about me’ so i wrote about everything else and it all still sounded like you
dear you the dog still waits by the door at six i don’t have the heart to tell him
if this reaches you don’t reply i just needed the words to leave me
dear you i stopped hoping you’d come back some time in april i didn’t even notice which day
i rewrote this so many times it doesn’t even say i love you anymore it just says take care
dear you i said ‘it’s fine’ so many times you never got to meet the version of me who wasn’t
i want to ask you if it was real but i’m afraid you’ll answer
dear you thank you for the good parts they were real too i checked
dear you i bought the book you kept recommending i still haven’t opened it i think i’m scared you’ll be inside
dear you it’s been a year i don’t count the days anymore i just happen to know
if we ever meet again i hope i’m wearing something nice and i hope i don’t care
dear you i drove past your street on purpose and then kept driving that’s the progress i wanted to tell you about
this is not a love letter it’s a list of everything i never got to say out loud
dear you i hope your new place has good light you always hated the dark
one day i’ll stop writing to you and you won’t even know which letter was the last
yours, not anymore but for a while completely