You Woke the Dragon

You woke the dragon inside of me. It was coiled around my heart, content to lay within the confines of my ribs and sleep in peace. It woke from the smell of fear that filled its nostrils and the sound of crying in its ears. It was content to sleep. The scales shimmered in the light of the love that I keep and it was content to sleep knowing it was not needed.

So do not be surprised when you hear me roar. Do not ask me to be quiet when you have woken the dragon in me. The dragon will protect that which it was meant to keep and it will breathe fire on all its enemies, attempting to lay waste on anything that seeks to harm what is precious to me, who is precious to me.

We are women. We are the life bringers. We are the sacred feminine. We are the softness that you seek when you are tired and you need a place to rest. We are the comfort in times when your heart aches with loneliness or pain. We gladly serve love in its many aspects to you, our mates, our friends, our colleagues, our children. We gladly give.

And yet….

And yet there are those that seek to see that softness as weakness, seek to control us as if they can. We are the yin to your yang and are no less than you. We compliment that which you do not currently possess.

But do not forget that within our softness, we have dragons sleeping in our breast and should you wake them, you will feel the burn of the fire we breathe.

My dragon is awake now. My dragon roars in frustration and pain, watching what people are being subjected to. We are not slaves. We are not second class citizens. We are no less than you. You have no right to bind us with your laws that tell us what we can or can not do with our bodies. You have no right to tell us who we are allowed to love. It is not right to bar the weeping, bleeding masses from our shores when our country was built on the premise that all are welcome here, as a refuge, as a safe harbor.

You have no right to do what you are doing and attempting to do and so my dragon roars. And you will hear the deafening noise we make when we come together and roar, until you listen, until you make this right, until you do right by the citizens of this country that you say that you protect.

We will not go quiet into that good night, make no mistake. We will continue to roar because you have woken the dragon inside of so many of us because of the fear that fills our nostrils and the crying that has reached our ears.

We will roar.

 

I Can Not Keep Quiet

**Making an edit:  In case the people I want to read this actually do, I want them to, at the very least, read what was meant for them. So I paste this here at the beginning in case they choose not to read

So, if I ever write a book about my life, my book will be dedicated to Isaac Koren, Thorald Koren, and Misha Collins for helping me find life outside the cage and for helping me find my heart and my passion and my voice. **

I have been working on trying to stabilize a roller coaster of emotions for months now and people around me keep suggesting there’s something wrong, maybe I need medicine. That is not the solution to my problem and no one understands quite what I’m going through so let me try to explain just a little.

I’ll give you a little bit of back story before I step onto my soap box and I will. Fair warning, if you don’t want a passionate speech, close this out now because I’m about to get into it.

So, I’m sure there is a medical term for what I’ve been plagued with all my life. I’m sure there’s a neat little box that society would like to put me in but I’ll tell you what I really think. Not really sure if I care if I’m wrong. I’m empathic. I’m “overly sensitive” and I always have been. I’m one of those super sensitive people that masks it with sometimes bitchy behavior or I try to push people away in one form or another. I also have what I consider a self defense mechanism that shields me from emotions because it becomes too much for me too quickly. I have always likened this to “living behind glass” where I can see and hear everything but I can’t really feel it. I don’t REALLY know what it is to be completely loved by any human being and that includes my parents. That’s somewhat sad but it’s all I’ve ever known so, for me, it’s “normal”.

Anyway, I’ve been through a fuckton of crap in the last four or five years of my life. The last year was a shit show the likes I don’t know if I can ever survive again and let’s just pray to the gods that be that I don’t have to because… I don’t know if I can do this again. As always, I do, honestly, try to find a lesson in crap that I go through. I’ve been through a lot of lessons but I’ve also been given some miraculous gifts that I don’t think I can properly explain.

I’ve posted previously about the “darkness” I went through. It was bad. Anyway, moving on. It was bad, the worst. Music is kind of like a lifeline for me. Always has been. Always will be. When there is no one around, which is quite often the case during dark periods, music is that voice in the dark that sees me through. Lucky for me, I have a thing inside me that makes sure I’m listening to only those things that can help pull me out of the darkness, out of the hole I’ve let myself fall into.

Lucky for me, there are bands like The Kin.

When I took the table that my life was on and flipped it the fuck over, scattering pieces to hell and gone in a last ditch effort to save my life, I had some gifts that landed in my lap. The first of which was the first opportunity to hear the Koren Brothers of The Kin play at a benefit concert. I’d been waiting 3 years to hear them play again. I’d seen them open for P!nk and that was great but after playing everything I could find by them, I wanted to hear them live again. I had thought I never would. I had thought that was a lost cause as they were an east coast band and I wasn’t on that side of the United States. Anyway, with little to no money and I mean that in a literal sense, I bought a ticket to hear them play even though it was 3 ½ hours away. It actually took 7 to get there because of traffic but whatever.

Anyway, I had the opportunity to meet them. I’d interacted twice on Facebook. Nothing extensive, nothing of any true importance. I got to meet them, though, and.. I don’t even know if I have words. I won’t ever be able to explain what they meant to me up to that point or how much more they mean to me, now. To stand with these men who exude an energy the likes I have never experienced or felt, was transformative. Even though I was and am a complete stranger, they made me feel so completely loved and valued in a way I’d never known. Ever. That one experience with each of them broke me. Needless to say, they were a catalyst for me, a tool the Universe used to break the glass I lived behind and I will never be the same. I will never be able to live behind that glass again. I will never be able to hide behind a wall of apathy again.

Dealing with the roller coaster of suddenly being able to “feel” things has been a challenge I’m not accustomed to. I cry more, now. I am MUCH more passionate in what feelings I do have. Mercurial. That’s a good word for me, right now. I feel as if the brothers flipped a switch in me and I am eternally grateful they allowed the Universe to use them in that way. And I am eternally grateful it was them and they were there.

Soon after, I got turned on to an actor named Misha Collins. I, often, can not tell you what it is about someone that catches my attention. I am not known for being drawn to people for their looks and I’ve had some interesting conversations about reasons for attraction to people but that’s another blog. Point being, I have no idea what it was that drew me to him but I was and, as per my usual pattern of behavior, I did my research. What else had he done? Was he really a good actor or was this one show a fluke for him? Etc. I have liked everything I’ve seen him in save one thing and it’s just so terribly awkward that I can’t watch it.

Anyway, anyone who knows of Misha knows what he stands for, what he believes in, what he’s passionate about because he is very vocal and very open about all of that. I am attracted to passionate people who are good and kind and Misha is all of that in spades. He’s very vocal about his political beliefs and if I had not had the experiences that I had with the Koren brothers, I would have blown him off as being a hot head or someone who was just trying to make waves. I would have made up false reasons for why he was doing what he was doing. And I would have been dead wrong.

While I have always wanted to help people, make a difference, change the world, that was all just too big for me and when I feel like things are too big, I tend to shut down. Shut down I did and I thought it was permanent. After all, I was raised with “live by the golden rule”, “don’t speak unless spoken to”, “don’t rock the boat”, and just this general understanding that because I don’t see the world as everyone else does, I am wrong. Whatever it is I think, it’s wrong. I have played that role. I have learned to play that part well enough that no one looks below the surface of that porcelain shell.

The anger builds, though, and builds to a deafening roar. I have lived my life as a split personality. What you see and who I am are not the same. The porcelain has been cracking for years but I’ve been patching it for years. I can’t patch this anymore. I can not lie anymore. I can not be quiet. I can not pretend that I am not screaming inside. I can not act like I don’t cry at the cruelty of this world. I can not stand by and let this world decay because of abject apathy from people too god damned concerned about their own selfish desires to realize there are people beside them bleeding out rivers of pain and need.

I CAN NOT BE YOUR QUIET LITTLE GIRL ANYMORE!

If you ask me to be quiet or to turn away from what I feel I need to do or say, be warned that we will at the very least have words but we may very well part ways. I am done doing as I’m told to do when it contradicts every fiber of my being. I am done being the good little soldier who trots along and follows orders from the higher ranking officers. I am committing mutiny because this fucking army is broken and it’s wrong and I will take as many people with me as I can. Wake up. Look around you and see what is happening.

I am going rogue and I don’t care who I offend anymore. I don’t care who I piss off.

My mother always told me to pick my battles. My entire life I heard that. You know what?

I PICK THIS GOD DAMNED WAR!

I have dealt with a lot of self disgust and self loathing. It has manifested in some truly ugly ways but I’ve just recently come to realize that I feel that way because I am not being true to myself. I am not living my life as I feel it is meant to be lived. I am not like my family. I am not like them and that’s okay because I was meant to be more. I was meant to make a difference. I was meant to be alive in this time and place because I have SHIT TO DO. I have things I was meant to be that I have not allowed myself to explore because I was still stuck in the ideas from my childhood. I feel like I am breaking out of a cage made of steel and it bends and starts to crack from my efforts of pushing and punching. It hurts breaking out of this cage, knowing that I’ve lived my life in here, thinking I was free, thinking this was how it was supposed to be and this was all there was.

So, yeah, I’m vocal, now. I will not be quiet when I think something is wrong. I will march for the causes I feel are right. I will not sit down when I feel there is something I can do to make a difference. But don’t mistake my passion for anger or hate. I fight with love and light and kindness. But I will protect my people and anyone I feel is being attacked, make no mistake. I am a fierce warrior and I will fight.

There is a wide world full of love and light and meaning and purpose out there that I always dreamed of but I was led to believe that wasn’t for me. It was never going to be for the likes of me. They were wrong. All the lies I was told, all the lies I believed were all wrong.

Anyone who used to know me thinks I’ve lost my mind and anyone who is getting to know me now is a little intimidated, I think, by the strength of this passion I have right now. You must understand that the passion is born of years being locked in a cage, unable to express what I really felt in my heart, unable to be who I always felt I was supposed to be.

So, if I ever write a book about my life, my book will be dedicated to Isaac Koren, Thorald Koren, and Misha Collins for helping me find life outside the cage and for helping me find my heart and my passion and my voice.

And I have vowed to be there for anyone and everyone I can. If you need me, please let me know. I have come to understand that even if all I can do is hold your hand in the darkness, that can mean the difference between life or death for some people so I will do that for you, if that is what you need.

I love you. Please know that you are so loved, so needed, so wanted, so valued in this world. Even if my country says you don’t belong here, please know that we, the people, for the most part, do not agree.

Everyone is welcome here.

Everyone is wanted.

Everyone is loved.

 

Open letter to Mr. Collins

Mr. Collins,

Your life is precious to me to the point that it brings tears to my eyes. I speak to the man you are beyond the characters you play. Your life is precious and means so very much to so many.

I love the fact that everyone says the same things about you and they are all amazing. I spoke to a girl just hours ago that talked about how she was so scared to go up to ask a question at a con and she was shaking horribly. She said the minute she got up to the microphone, you just had a way of making her feel okay. Everyone says that. You make them feel okay, no matter how scared they are or how nervous. That’s a magic thing, sir. Magic. Not everyone has that touch, that influence (don’t laugh, I’m not going there) but you do.

I am a serious sort though I am trying to learn to laugh again. I don’t take things or people that intrigue me at face value. I research, in my way, and dig until my curiosity is satisfied. Wasn’t counting on you being who you are, sir. Wasn’t counting on that at all. You’re that thing that blindsided me on some random Tuesday that changed my life forever and I will never be the same. I can never go back to the person I was before I experienced even peripherally what you are and I thank you for that.

There is a place in my soul that I have carved out to hold a group of people that mean the world to me and hold a meaning that can never be replaced or replicated. It’s special and it’s not secret but it is treasured and protected like nothing else. These people are the reason I am who I am today. I carry them with me every step I take: Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, a friend of mine, my grandmother, John Lennon and you.

I will not justify to anyone why you are there. I have my reasons but do not take what I have said to mean that I idolize you for that is not the case. None of these people are perfect. They are all flawed, in their way, but that, in and of itself, is a beautiful magic that no one can touch. Even through their flaws, they are absolutely amazing human beings. I can’t speak for them all but at least half of you have this humble nature that insists that you are not to be held in such esteem because of those flaws. Yet, that is what gives someone like me hope. I am imperfect but that does not mean I can’t do great things.

Your existence alone makes me want to be a better person. I, too, want to change the world, in my way. It’s highly unlikely that I will start a charity like Random Acts or launch something as amazing as GISHWHES but I will change lives, regardless. I will change them because you gave me hope that even if all I can do is one small thing, I can make a difference. I strive to be more caring, more kind, more supportive, more observant of the world around me and what is happening to people I may not normally take notice of. I already strive to be these things but you make me want to do more, be more, be better than I was yesterday.

You gave me one of the most priceless things I think I’ve ever been given and I don’t have words enough to express the level of gratitude. I always say you “activated” me. Odd expression to some but I feel like a dormant soldier that’s been waiting for the trigger word. It feels like you flipped a switch in me and the first thing you did was you helped me find my voice again. You didn’t give it to me. You just reminded me it was there. You helped me see that I can change the world and it doesn’t have to be this thing that’s too big for me to handle. You reminded me that I’m not alone. You showed me, somehow, that I have my part to contribute to the grand scheme of it all but it’s not for me to do by myself. You showed me that there are others like me out there and that it truly is okay to let my weird side out again. Hell, isn’t this letter a sign of my weirdness?

I’m a fan, it’s true. I don’t want an autograph, though. I don’t need a photograph with you. I don’t even need a hug (but my God, who would turn one down?). Me? I just want to shake your hand and look you in the eyes so I can say thank you. I just pray I get to do that some day. I have such respect for you that all I want is to shake your hand. I don’t need anything from you.

I’m never going to be a name you remember. I’m never going to be that face you recognize. But, Mr. Collins, I see your soul and it’s a beautiful thing. I am so grateful for something as simple and innocent as a t.v. show because it led me to you. It led me towards you, to the path I feel I was always meant to travel. I knew what the path was but not where. You were a key player in getting me headed the right direction so I am eternally grateful for that.

The funny thing about you is that everyone always talks about feeling they have so much in common with you. I think that’s part of your draw. You make us feel you’re just like us and that we could sit down over a pot (yes, a whole pot) of tea and talk to you for hours. I guess that’s why you have such influence (I really hate that the word has been ruined by our fandom because it fits and I can’t help but giggle every time I use it now) over so many people. We look at you and think “He’s like us so if he can do it, we can do it”. I love you for that. I don’t think it is but even if that’s all an act you have perfected, I love that about you.

The people in your life are so lucky to have you and you to have them, I know. Thing is, you seem like such a loving person and that is really not a common thing these days. I thank you for that transparency because while we may not be the direct recipients of your friendship or your affection, you still make us feel that way. For some, even that is more than they’ve ever had. So thank you for being so generous with your spirit and your heart.

It doesn’t seem likely I’ll ever have the chance to see you face to face so I write this open letter. I get the feeling you’re a lurker and you read a lot without commenting on anything so I’ll just hope this makes it to you. I know you probably won’t read it, which is fine, but I’ll put it out into the Universe and the love contained will get to you another way, through another source and that’s all that truly matters, in the end.

Just… thank you for helping me change my own life. And thank you for being that thing that blindsided me on a random Tuesday afternoon. Blessings to you and yours, always.

Namaste, my friend,

Janessa

 

It’s the little things that change a life

It doesn’t take much to change some lives. Sometimes it’s a touch at the right time. Sometimes it’s as simple as a smile or a word you’d never guess. It’s the simple things, the free things, the gestures that come so naturally to you that transform someone’s life from black to gray. It doesn’t take a full transformation from black to white but just the introduction, the suggestion that there is something other than the blackness they reside in that breaks them out of the pattern.

I know that, for me, it’s the simplest things that have changed my life.

The first one, was a smile from a boy that scared me. He turned out to be my first teacher. He is a great part of my foundation. He is my measuring stick for judging people and while I have since learned that what friendship we had was one sided, the fact remains that he is still my first teacher and my measuring stick and I would not trade him or that experience for the world. Living in that moment with him there, is worth more than all the gold I’ve ever seen. He taught me the kind of person I wanted to be, I should be, I needed to be.

The second one, I don’t even know how to describe it. It was a knowing in my soul that he was mine. Maybe it was the look in his eye. Maybe it was the curve of his lips. Maybe it was the fiber of his existence that changed me. He taught me that I could love someone to the point of my own destruction and I would willingly sacrifice myself to the gods for another.

The third one, he hugged me. He hugged me and allowed me, for a split second, to stand in the light of love. It was the love of the universe he gave me. For one second, I knew what it was to be loved so completely for everything I am, everything I am not and everything I am ever going to be. It hurts me that I can never express what a transformative experience that was or to have a soul such as that in my life on a regular basis.

The fourth one, he is a work of art. He is an amazing creature that changed me by living the example of what I had always dreamed to be. He does not exist in my world and most likely we’ll never meet. I have to be okay with that even though I wish nothing more than to pay my respects to the man who woke me up inside. The lesson he taught me is profound. I guess I can say he taught me with a picture. A picture of him with his two small children, his oldest son holding a box of donuts, handing them out to homeless and hungry souls. What that picture taught me is maybe not what you see when you look at the surface of what it is. Yes, it is important to serve humanity, reach out and help your fellow man. But… to some, it’s nothing. It’s a donut. It’s small change. That’s the key. If all you can do is hand out donuts, you do that. That’s what you do because it’s what you are able to do. But also… teach the ones that come behind you. Teach the kids. Teach the souls waking up beside you that every small act, every tiny kindness can add up to something. Contribute what you can because it matters. Anything you can give, matters.

The fifth, a woman I found through the fourth, showed me what it was to be brave again. She exposed herself in such a way as to invite ridicule, censure, judgement and, yet, her message was such a bright light into my darkness. She is beautiful. I hope to be as brave that I can not only stand in my truth but live in it, unafraid of what pitfalls may come. I have a smaller chance of meeting her than the fourth but I will hold out for the day that maybe I can hug her and shake her hand, just to thank her for being so brave because I needed to hear what she had to say. I needed to be asked those hard questions that made me evaluate all the messes I had made of my life and what the root of those messes were. Her message was one thing but she and the fourth made me take a left turn off my path because in listening to them, I realized… I was going the wrong way.

Every one of these souls is precious and special and they hold a place in my heart that is reserved just for them. Every one of these men, in their way, taught me that the light I have inside burns brightly and I need to remember that when the night grows too dark for me to see my way.

Sometimes, it’s just a hand in the dark that matters. Sometimes, it’s something simple as the word hello shouted down the hole you fell into. Sometimes it’s the face at the end of the tunnel shouting encouragement and praise for how strong you are to keep walking when you are so very tired.

It’s the simple things that matter, my friend, so never doubt that what small act you can offer may very well change someone’s life for the better.

Gypsy Soul

I had felt the warning, humming in my blood.

There were forces coming against us for what we have always been.

We were nothing to them but an abomination of their god.

We were the epitome of their fear, their anger, their hate

because we encompassed that which they did not understand.

We lived as we chose, bound by no rules that man had made.

We lived in nature, guided by the hand of the Goddess who answered only to the Universe at hand.

We sought to heal, to love, to be one with the forces around us.

We were not bound by the laws of men, to be chained to the will

and forced into a submissive role we were never meant to house.

We were the rising power. We were the hope at hand.

We were the fortune tellers. We lived as one with this land.

They came for us with fire. They came for us with rope.

I was wandering the forest and could not make it home.

They burned the houses we built. They burned the tools of our trade.

They burned the babes we made.

We were slaughtered and hung like animals.

We were worth less than the meat they ate.

We were innocent and free. We lived as one with the wind and the tides.

We danced around the fire to celebrate the beauty of our life.

We were given gifts and we were given as gifts to this world.

We were misunderstood.

We were stoned for being what we were born to be.

We were outcast in the best of circumstances. We were murdered in the worst.

I could not get to you.

I ran. I ran until my strength escaped me.

I ran from the mobs of men who sought to send us straight to hell,

thinking that was where we belonged.

They never saw that we were children, living as the Universe intended.

I have lived many lifetimes since then

but the guilt, it follows me.

I can not forgive myself for not being faster on my feet.

My senses did not see the danger in time to save you.

I was not fast enough to see.

I had faith in my fellow man but, in the end, I was deceived.

I thought someone would step forward with reason and make them see.

I was wrong. I was too late. I lost you all. I will never be free.

 

***

I hesitate to use this phrase but this is inspired by a song “Palm Reader” by Anna Madsen. I hesitate to use that phrase because this video awakened what has always felt like a memory of a previous life. You can find the video on youtube and I highly recommend it. I am a gypsy soul in more ways than I care to explain and this video sends shivers through my soul every time I see it.

This…. This is me. This is my gypsy soul.

Letter to long lost love

Hello, love.

It’s been awhile. It’s been too long.

I loved you. I still love you. I will probably love you until the day I die. Actually, I’m pretty sure I will.

I remember the first moment I ever laid eyes on you. You were sitting in a folding chair, leaned back on two legs against the wall, your blond hair shining in the sun. Something inside me clicked into place and I literally thought “There you are. I was wondering where you were.”

Your eyelids were at half mast, masking what I would later learn was the beautiful blue of your eyes. You watched me walk up the stairs with something akin to the eyes of a hunter who was not yet ready to embark on the hunt. You watched everything I did but you didn’t approach. Nor did I. I was still processing my initial thought.

I peeked in the door of a friend a few apartments away and told her the most beautiful man I’d ever seen was sitting at the end of the hallway. She laughed. I was not one to say things like that. I was not one to feel things like that.

Your friend had invited me over for a barbeque. I didn’t know him except in passing. He introduced us but we didn’t talk. Not really. I was far too shy and intimidated by my gut reaction to you. You were out of my league and that was readily apparent to anyone with eyes. I felt it. I knew it. I owned it. That does not mean that I wasn’t still breathless when you turned those eyes my way or felt that itch under my skin that made me want to reach out and touch you. I only stayed for a short while, still far too intimidated by strangers and men to feel comfortable staying for too long.

Two weeks later, you moved in with your friend and he, again, invited me up to hang out with you both. I was still breathless around you. I was still full of nerves and wants that I didn’t know how to handle. I was always that girl that was shy and afraid with no idea how to even begin to approach a man, even if I’d wanted to. I was fascinated by the way your hair stood in spikes. I asked if I could touch it and I remember a strange look passing over your face although I could not read the expression. Your roommate went to bed after drinking too much and we stayed up talking about any sort of randomness. When I went to leave, you walked me to the door and I raised my hand to wave goodbye. Faster than I could even process, you had pushed me up against the wall and were kissing me like I was your last breath of air and you were drowning.

I have never before and never since been kissed like that. I felt so beautiful, so wanted like I never had before. I felt like I had sunshine running through my veins. I was lit up from the inside out and I felt like I could fly. You were so beautiful and you were kissing me like that.

We messed around on a couple more occasions. We moved on to sex. I knew I had fallen in love with you that first moment but the first time we were together, I could not wrap my head around how loved I felt, how special and treasured you made me feel. I have never really gotten over that. Not really. Men are still compared to you and it’s likely they always will.

You fed my soul in a way that no one else ever has. You made me feel loved, you talked to me about philosophy and the universe and all manner of things I didn’t know or comprehend, you talked to me of possibilities, you made me feel special. Most of all, though, I loved you with every fiber of my being, every beat of my heart, every touch of my fingers on your skin, every smile, every kiss. I loved you like no other.

You were an alcoholic. I knew that. You began a habit of coming to see me after you’d been to the bar. You would come to me sobbing with your broken heart on your sleeve. All you wanted was comfort and to be cared for. You loved to have me run my fingers through your hair as you held on. You would talk about your heartbreak and I would listen with tears in my heart. I cried because you hurt. I wanted you to be happy and feel loved because you did those things for me. You even asked me to marry you once. You didn’t mean it. I understood it was just the liquor talking. I would have married you. I would have had a child with you. You were the only man I would ever have had a child with.

We didn’t last long. I was young and frustrated that you were a homebody and I was not. I was stupid and hurt. I was insecure believing that you didn’t want to be seen in public with me because I wasn’t a stick thin model figure. I broke it off. I broke my own heart and wallowed in the pain of losing you. I spent a week not speaking to anyone, no one. I went a little bit crazy and locked away the broken pieces of my heart in a steel chest behind a steel door within a mighty fortress surrounded with barbed wire and landmines. No one was getting in ever again.

I knew that I needed to get rid of the pain and face it for what it was. I made you listen to me. I told you I wished we’d never met because the pain was so great that I was drowning in it. I made you cry. I will never forget seeing you with the shine of tears in your eyes. I also told you that if you told me to wait here and you’d be back for me in 5 years, I’d be sitting here when you returned. Even now, if you told me to wait, I’d be waiting for you.

We had to stay friends as I started dating your newest roommate. That was difficult, to say the least. To be forced to be around you and still see all the things I still loved about you but not be able to kiss you or hold you like I wanted was torture. I cried out your name in bed with my new boyfriend. I never told you that.

You told me once that we’d never been together as a couple. Yet, on another occasion, you let it slip you were angry with my boyfriend because he had stolen me from you. I think you were still in the same boat as me, possibly. You wanted to be with me but couldn’t. I was a poet then and had asked that you not tell me if you didn’t like the poetry because it meant a lot to me. A group of us were drinking in your room one night and you made a comment out of the blue that I sucked at poetry but I was good in bed so I probably should just stay there. I was so shocked and devastated by that statement that all I could do is walk away in silence.

You chased after me, trying to give me your most prized possession as an apology. That was a sign of something that I can only hope for but can’t put my faith in.

Things between you and my boyfriend dissolved into anger and violence so you left. You just left.

I have been married twice since we parted and had other relationships. None of them work. They never work. They never work because he isn’t you. He will never be you. He can never make me feel what you did and I am forever chasing that high. I am always chasing that feeling of being loved so completely. It may have all been in my head but I know how I felt.

I think about you over the years. You were always and will always be the one who got away. I let you go and I regret that all the time.

We were too broken to stay together. We each had our issues. I just wish I’d known then how to work past them. I wish I’d known the keys to keeping what we had together.

I am sorry for everything but mostly I’m sorry for letting you go.