love letters

I'm writing love letters. I'm taking off my rings and I'm writing love letters to the past. The things I can't change anymore, regardless of how I want to, how I ache to. I write love letters to them.

I address it to past me. Selfish me, convenience me, the me that doesn't listen. I address it to thousands of past yous. Sweet you, gentle you, the you that didn't deserve the things I did, said, and didn't say.

I write love letters to remember, not to glorify. To remember the extent of sweetness, brightness, pinkness that I have had and experienced.

grace

I'm writing love to the woman that I never feel as I know as much as I should. The one I so admire for continuing to make plans and push on when she is not feeling well. Love to the poet that's lived inside of her for so long, asking her to notice the colors in dry erase markers and the patterns in nature, the humor in words, the humor in all of it.

isaiah

I'm writing love to the boy I constantly make fun of, when I say, I know he can take it. Because I do. But I'm writing to say, I love that I can tease you, but I love the good things about you more, even though I don't talk about them as much.

becca

I'm writing love to the girl who was never disposable, the girl that tastes like endlessness. An ocean, a path through the pines, one that takes my words and bends with them, winds with them, walks with them. I'm always writing love to her.

angela

I'm writing love to the mother of the girl that feels like home. I'm writing on windows and mirrors, my lungs scratched with sobs for one of the strongest women I've ever known. I'm writing to say, I love you like my own mother, you are strong like my own mother, beautiful like my own mother, wonderful like my own mother.

ben

I'm writing love to the boy who was strong, and not afraid to admit he was also scared. Writing love to how inspiring his candidness was, guard down, admitting his care into my paint stained palms. And I write to send, to strengthen, to love. I write that I might go with him to make him laugh as he has made me.

mariah

I'm writing love to the woman that changes my life everyday by the things she told me last week. Writing love and gratitude to her mind and the way she blesses the chair legs and the coffee cups and pieces of steel tables, blessing the hands, praying for the hearts. The girl that sways beside me like a willow and says, I'm willing to do everything with you. I am unable, I think, of fully knowing how valuable she is to me, other than in how I feel it in my veins.

josh

I'm writing love to the past to the boy that didn't know what I was going to say. I'm writing all the sweetness I know how to hold to the way that he holds me, holds my words, holds my ideas and poems and songs and thoughts. Love to the cup he holds asks me to pour, that never ever spills when I pour like a little kid.

lindsay

I'm writing every single drop of bloodlove to the girl who doesn't know how she will survive. To her laughter and cry-brown eyes and the way she knows things I haven't begun to understand yet.

jacob

I'm writing love to the boy that doesn't really know how to be yet. To the one that no one questions, that everyone loves but doesn't quite understand. Love to the boy who isn't sure how to know what a woman is, but knows that even cluelessness can feel like friendship.

ellie

I'm writing love to the girl that sat behind her coffee and listened, and I'm writing to all the little struggles wriggling in her own heart. I'm writing to the way she waited and listened and watched and wanted to talk to me, wanted to sit next to me, wanted to see my sketches when I always showed someone else.

eli

I'm writing love letters to doodles and sketches and the many many things they taught me. I'm writing to say that it's okay to be cautious, to avoid depth, to be hurt, to be made new. I'm writing to doodles, to say, I can always love you without truly knowing the hands that sketch you.

megan

I'm writing love to the girl who said, can I be honest with you? and was always honest, always sweet from that day forth. To the two of us, filled with flowers and trees and hiking and whatever future us decide to do. I'm writing sweetness to her, and peace. To the artist in her that doesn't feel unique with such a common name, I write a few poems, write ten poems, write a hundred poems to tell her how special she is.

naomi <3

I'm writing love letters to the girl who always did the dishes, to say how much that meant to me though I didn't say it when her hands were in the water. My words didn't feel like enough to tell her how she removed a stack of plates that sat in my way on more than a physical level. It made me want to make a meal, how clean it was. I'm writing to say I loved that.

I'm writing love and not apologies because I want to live in overflow.

but then,

I do write apologies.

I do write apologies, so many of them that they fill up my windpipe as I do. Little paper snowflakes, all of them. They fill my mouth, flutter out, land where they may, never quite speaking the nuances of what my heart actually means.

love was never all metaphors, all poetry, all imagery. It is broken skin as well, it is cracked hands.

So I do write apologies, with my words, to the woman who deserves endless amounts of love letters. To the one that values hand written notes, little words, little smiles, little touches. I am writing dozens of apologies when I see the me sitting on my hometown bed, rampaging through another art crisis, not taking the time to think about anyone else. I'm writing love letters to the past that she is part of, writing, I didn't realize how much I missed you, needed you, loved how you make everyday things exciting just with your smile. I'm writing, I'm so sorry for not asking you. I'm crying while she rinses the bowl I make bread in, and think, how wonderful it is to share with you. How wonderful it has always been to share with you and see the excitement written into your face. How intelligent it makes me feel when you ask me to explain my poetry. How shortsighted I was to empathy, to understanding, to tact, to tenderness.

I am writing brokenness into my letters as I finish the last lines. I address love to the past we lived in, the halls she walked, the inspiration she wore, and I write, I am sorry for not thinking of how you felt when I decided how to live, because I decided to be an exclamation mark instead of a question mark, and because I saw her as a period instead of a parentheses when she was always, always a parentheses.

I am writing love to that past, to her, to him, to them, to us, as we watch from the present tense, and maybe regret a little bit.

As I sign my letters off with a million tiny x's and o's, I write love and apologies, for the times I showed instead of listening. As I sign my letters off, I say, I'm thankful, I'm grateful, I'm trying to listen better, I don't want to be seen so much as I want to see, I can't seem to stop writing, I'm growing every day, I'm ready to meet Jesus, I'm tired, I'm happy, I'm in love.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

greta

sending love to you, faithful reader,

typing your name in invisible ink ;)