Dear Josh,
We are memories, dust. We are random skin flakes, fabric and dirt. We are cobwebs and filth. We collect in corners. We wait. I wish it would have ended better but there was no other way for it to end. Suicide threats and bruised ribs. Heartache, betrayal, alcohol. I take full responsibility for my disloyalty. I cheated on you. I left you for someone else whom I then married. That's aching betrayal. That’s destruction.
For over 2 years we had our moments. We should have broken up long before we dug our trenches and weathered the war. No one but us understood why we were together. Why we ignored everything around us.
That first night. We were trapped. We were 3 hours from home, staying with friends for a wedding. I was almost asleep. You were drunk. You wrapped your hands so tightly around my neck. I couldn't even scream. I was too shocked to try. Your eyes were so sad. I thought those blue daggers were going to be the last thing I ever saw. We were dying. First my edges got blurry and I stopped fighting I didn't break eye contact, not once. It was strange but at that moment right before the world went black I felt we were the same. For a fleeting pause, we switched place, you were the one dying. When my eyes fluttered open the next day I drew in a sucking, ravenous breath and exhaled tears. I ran to the bathroom and puked. I avoided you all day at our friends' house. I wore out our welcome because I didn't want to spend 3 hours in a car with you. Your eyes were still so sad.
My pulse raced. My hands shook as we got in the car. Every movement you made – to change the radio station or check your phone – caused a violent shift in my position. Over the course of 3 hours you won me back. You shouldn't have.
Loving you was exhausting. You made me feel so different. You lavished attention. You made me confident and beautiful and needed. Then you'd drink. Every night. I would explain away your behavior in public. I defended you. People asked me why, I had no real answer. I loved you. It was enough. I was skilled at reading you. I knew when we went home or went to bed what was going to happen. The nights I'd wake up to your hands around my throat. Fingers tightening. I knew better. I stayed. I stayed for those blue eyes and those meaningful words and that hard body. I stayed because I felt no one would ever love me so desperately, deeply, suffocating as you. I stayed because you stayed. Because dust is unseen.
Illness after strange ailment after injury befell me while we dated. My body was fully rejecting what we were. I didn't listen. Until my Colposcopy. I was scared and turned to you for the downpour of your addiction. You said,
"I just want you to know, if it's cancer or something serious, I'm not going to stick around. I can't watch you die slowly."
My world with you got fuzzy and faded to black. I could feel your fingers on my neck only this time your eyes, your beautiful blue eyes, were hard. You tried to backpedal when everything cleared. I should have ended it then. Instead we lingered. Dust on the air. We flitted. We fell. We became stagnant. Listless.
I broke your heart then. Smashed it into pieces with someone new. We should have separated then, completely. My guilt let me cling to you. Until I picked you up from the bar and brought you home. Your anger was palpable. It spilled over. I didn't believe I would survive this time. You pinned me to the wall and then the ground. You put your full weight into it. I still have the shirt you ripped when I tried to get away. Suddenly, though, it all shifted. You were the one dying. I scurried to a corner, shaking, my phone smashed or thrown. The neighbors didn't even call the cops. I know I screamed this time. I know I begged for help. We crawled together to bed. After you begged me to kill you. After you turned a blade on yourself and I had to save you. I let you hold me one last time.
We are dust. We are molecules. We are memories in a faded, weathered photo album. Yellow pages turning in on themselves. I was happy forgetting you but you were never really forgotten cobwebs get rebuilt, wars leave scars. Your accident, where you died twice. Created an unexpected ripple effect for me. I contacted you, because I could watch you die slowly. Through our interactions I realized you still had a grip on my neck. You would say key phrases that would embed themselves under my skin. Burrow in my brain. One of us will always be dying. My only option. My only choice. Is to dust.
