an open letter to lovers

there is nothing a dark alleyway can’t hold, no man that is guaranteed to not follow me home, no way to get home safe without clutching a knife and rubbing your abuelita’s quartz, praying that your ancestors will watch over you at least until you get back home. and i get back home but i avoid the mirrors. and i get back home but i choose my dinner based on people who will never perceive me, take a shower and keep my eye fixed on the tile in case i see something of myself the world does not expect of me, in case i see something i think is worth destroying.

who is watching me? what performance do i put on? when did i become so heartbreakingly aware that i was seen?

i do not forget this when you speak of her.

you never pass up an opportunity to tell me i am your sunshine, your happiness, the one you miss when you are alone and 100 miles away. i believe you, but you are far too sorrowful to crave only sun. in every one of your wounds, i recognize her teeth. i do not blame you for letting her destroy you. she is effortlessly beautiful, sleek and strong as a hand-crafted gun. her voice is like the sound just before the rain— belly deep and soft as beaten, battlefield grass. and you- with your strong arms, alert gaze, and obsession with war movies, have never turned down a chance to charge into battle. what can happiness do for a girl who has fallen in love with war?

i do not forget this when you speak of her.

you tell me she has dug a knife in you that she never pulled out. millions of my kisses (and there have been millions) can never draw more blood than a single wound from her long, elegant fingers. the body absorbs love, yes; but it remembers pain stubbornly, forming wounds that take too long to heal. i, too, want a place on your skin. i want to be the one you crave like warriors hunger for war. and as you tell me of every wound and scrape she left you as i ice your wounds, the question rises on my lips— is the love i give you more permanent than the pain she left you?

i do not forget this when you speak of her.

you cry all night and i watch the walls become waterlogged, heavy with oceans and oceans of every moment you’ll never live again.

maybe it is because i love you too much to make you my muse.

i would rather wrap myself around your limbs like a starving serpent than walk far enough from you to see you in your entirety. i am too distracted by the way the evening sunlight spills on the top of your head and the early blue dawn of your gaze to write of it. the lover admires what the poet misses in their rush to make art, but you are the first person i have never wished to make anything out of. i have no need to sign my name under paltry retellings of your smile, i have no hunger to become famous from your memory.

all i crave is to wrap myself in the soft shawl of your arms, to press my skin to you like early dawn dew to the morning fields. i would experience you before i’d see you, i’d press your lips onto mine, again and again, before i’d find the time to write a single word. i know by now that art is memory, a repeating chorus of muddled moments made into something for strangers to admire. for once, i need no part in it. i cannot bear to be apart from you long enough to remember you.

every time i reach for a pen to write of you, my fingers find your cheek instead.

in my head, i travel to places that are less cruel. the italian countryside, the beaches of puerto rico, or the rolling green hills of ireland. i think i need to feel like there’s something waiting for me, even if i know that’s not guaranteed. i spend so much time in my head that sometimes i forget to check if the world is as cruel as i’ve left it. i’ve stopped trying to find out. today, the breeze still blows, the birds are awake, and no matter how much time is running out, it will run all the same. i still cry when i imagine all the other places i could be. but on some days i don’t feel so cheated. some days it is all as beautiful as i’ve imagined it.

somehow, that’s scarier than being small.

so here’s my answer to you, the girl i love:

there is a theory that everyone’s heart is wrapped with red string, and connected across miles to the one we love. and when the time is right, the strings of our hearts pull us together. to the girl on the other side of my red string: i love you because when i kiss you we become one body. i love the person we create when we are vulnerable together, all string and fingers and breath. i love you because i never loved the ocean until you told me you’d swim in it for hours straight, letting the waves carry you into a place away from your own mind. i love you because you give money and food and kindness every time you see someone in need. and not to look like a good person, but because you genuinely wish the world for everyone. i love you because you always say good morning and offer to make my breakfast even if your nightmares kept you from sleeping the night before. i love you because you kiss me as if i am air and you are earth, molecules helplessly tied together by science or magic or both. i love you because you always listen to me, even if i am screaming or crying or rambling out of my mind. i love you because you feel everything with your whole body— all you know is the sea so you can only drown in your emotions. i love you because you are always strong enough to paddle to shore. i love you because you can’t eat mcdonald’s without getting sick and i love you because i can’t kiss you without smiling and i love you i love you i love you for every reason and for none at all. and i’ll love you when you’re so sad you can’t move, i’ll love you when you can’t stop screaming and i’ll love you when you do. i’ll love you when your mind is too loud to hear the sound of my voice and i’ll love you when we make mistakes no one thinks we’ll be able to come back from. i’ll love you when you rise and fall and tangle in my fingertips. to the girl on the other end of my string: i’ll wrap my heart around the earth again and again and again if that’s what it takes to love you.