I’ve written this letter approximately 912 and a half times, or one for every day since the first time I saw you.
I’ve folded and crumpled this page so many ways that the creases have become a trail;
it’s turned into a map of disorganized thrill and heart racing panic written in the lamp of the crescent moon,
I became a cartographer of late night reveries and sleep deprived excitement,
I became a translator of the stars above me, believing that the only thing I could inscribe as beautiful as you were the constellations.
I became an explorer,
Here I can guide you through the days, the blotted ink when I first realized my feelings for you I was so scared my hands shook as if every letter I wrote would appear on my forehead for everyone to read
Where tears dropped like bombs on nights of stolen vodka and bulls*** teenage angst I felt as if the words were straining out of my lips and ears and eyes for I was drowning from them internally
Where rips and cigarette burns appeared from careless days when fake 80’s movie montages in my mind were not enough
And where words were pressed so hard into the paper I thought they would be tattooed on your skin.
I learned that no romantic could be an atheist for I never prayed harder on those nights when I tried to reach out for your saintly warmth beside me, trace your pious temple and fumble in the dimness for your reverent lips
It was not until later that I realized these fantasies were made of glass, and when you smashed them I could not try to pick them back up without stabbing myself and bleeding bitter fate and the blacklist hope of forsaken lovers
And I can tell you now that this map does not lead to love, for sentiment is not a one way road that can be taken by wishful escapists
So I wait in my exile of infatuated delusion for the twilight smoke to rise so I can retrieve my pen and begin letter 913.