To Ovid

This letter, my dear, will be rather long. I always felt more comfortable expressing myself to you in writing. I can be as bold as I like. What I put down on paper I can reconstruct after careful consideration. There have been a few edits already. But when I stand before you, I never know what I’m liable to say. At this moment I feel in control. It feels right. You are not present, ready to tell me otherwise. It is not to say that you should feel my words are not sincere. The force inside me is moving my hands at this very moment. For if it is difficult to love, it is even more difficult to explain why one loves. Perhaps it would be better if I did not constantly question matters of love. Perhaps this is not an option for me.

It’s been three weeks since you’ve contacted me. It might’ve been better for me to just let you come back when you were ready, to wait quietly and sullenly for you. Patiently anticipating you, at that hour of dusk when we can see so little and feel so much. I often expected your greatest ease to occur at dusk, but I soon came to understand you. I know you, my dear. You may be emboldened by night, yet it was only in the dawn of day when you saw me with softness, and your eyes ceased to search.

I remember the first time I saw you. You were at the park reading Euripides under a tree. Oh how desperately I wanted to meet you! I admit with severe trepidation that I returned to that spot constantly, with the anticipation of seeing you. I waited. This may sound trite, but I have always been waiting for you. There were numerous times in which I did find you there, sitting at that same dilapidated bench, reading and smoking a cigarette. You always seemed to be brooding. I couldn’t understand the depth of my interest, without knowing who you really were. I even found myself gazing at you once. I often tried to imagine what you were like, what your voice sounded like, if you had a peculiar sense of humor like mine. You were always reading so intently, your eyebrows knitted in concentration. You rather enjoy poetry, don’t you? Callimachus, Philetas and Sappho were just a few of your favorites. Oh yes, I studied you. And after all those times I returned to the park, I don’t think you really noticed me. Or had you? Now that I think about it, you did smile at me once. I’m not sure if you remember that.

I don’t know if you realized this, but I have always been rather shy. I’m sure this statement will elicit a smile from you, because at this point it seems rather presumptuous, but I can promise you it’s true. I’m convinced that the shy, meek girl inside me will always be present, an active participant in everything I do. The thing about us late bloomers is, we spend a great deal of our lives making up for lost time, thereby submitting ourselves to constant acts of zealotry. What’s important to note is how everything is done out of a sense of longing. I’m utterly convinced my lack of experience in dating during my teenage years had a hand in my assertion with men. This is precisely why I returned to that park bench, week after week. Did you sense my longing? Sitting there alone, did you ever feel me wishing for your closeness?

Perhaps you had, because it didn’t take too long for you to react to my presence. You actually turned out to be more than I’d bargained for. Contrary to me, you were never the least bit timid. In fact, when given the opportunity you were rather bold. I was surprised. Pleasantly so. Do you remember when I came to see you at work for the first time? You were about to finish your shift. You sat in that broken chair by the exit sign, while I stood in front of you and spoke with your co-worker Jack. You did something I won’t forget too soon. It was a small detail, but it evoked an irresistible sense of desire in me. You casually stroked the back of my leg as I spoke. Your fingers moved slowly over my skin, making their way up the back of my knee. You did this so absentmindedly, almost instinctually, as if the forces of the universe had taken your hand as an instrument. I feigned nonchalance, but internally my heart danced. I continued talking with Jack, never missing a beat. But as I did this, I moved closer to your hand, so you could access me without struggle. Do you ever wonder why people rarely admit to this kind of attention to detail? It’s overtly human of us, I suppose. Yet I feel we lose the magic love elicits when we start to take these small details for granted. I like to think that I’ve always surrendered myself with candor, but in a sense I’ve also detested myself for it. I am not unfamiliar with ambivalence. This feeling of ambivalence would stay with me throughout the course of knowing you, and for good reason. You were my biggest victory. You were my greatest mistake.

Driving home today, engulfed by feelings of emptiness and vulnerability, I saw the remnants of a beautiful sunset, the deep purple and pink hues spreading vibrantly across the sky. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I drove on, being surrounded by so much beauty, while filled with such pain. The beauty I observed in the landscape only heightened my sorrow, somehow. It mocked my pain. In this life, everything tends to carry on as planned, with or without us. We are inconsequential to the natural order of the world. Fighting against this is futile. The fact that I have become inconsequential to you however, leaves me cold. I am tormented by your absence. In the midst of this torment, I can only think of finding you, loving you, but I sense that my need to desperately follow you will only cause you to flee. Shall I forget you, rather than wait for you? How am I to forget the way you have treated me now, when you treated me the way I have always longed to be treated, just prior to that?

How fleeting love is! I can’t help but question the sincerity of our emotions when such a radical turn occurs. And yet, perhaps naively, I can’t help but absolutely believe you loved me. There was a time when you stood at my doorstep with a whole uncooked chicken and a smile. You came over to make me chicken soup from scratch because I was sick. You stayed the entire night with me, easing my discomfort with your gentle caress. I even got you sick and you didn’t mind, or at least pretended not to. This does not account for the numerous times you cooked for me at your home, the endless bottles of wine consumed. Or the way you always carried me when my feet were aching, how protective you became of me, your tender kisses, how you took care to notice every detail, the way you held me when I lost a close friend, the ceaseless tickling matches we had, how you indulged my childhood nostalgia by pushing me on the swings at the park, the way your eyes shone with tenderness when you looked at me. Your eyes betrayed you. They probed my soul.

My darling Ovid, we are indeed strange. I have come to take a perverse pleasure in my suffering for you. It’s difficult to not consider oneself superior when one suffers more. And the sight of happiness in people makes me nauseous at the idea of such bliss. I am contented by the fact that I’m in anguish, because it demonstrates how genuine my love is for you. You once told me you could love only when hurt. I didn’t understand at the time, I was too happy then. I have come to know that pleasure is too ephemeral. It abandons us, like a faithless friend. My unhappiness will too abandon me, but at this time I only escape the memory of you, and thus my suffering, during sleep.

Shakespeare once said, “To thine own self be true.” My greatest errors have been committed when not living by those words. I admit fault. I know I became careless. I stopped doing those things that were important to me, in order to allot time for you. I became too focused on work, allowed life to get in the way. I lost a sense of myself, and had less and less to say. I failed to keep alive the feeling I first elicited in you. I became all too comfortable. I took your adoration as a given. I lost my creativity, neglected to take special care with my appearance like I used to. I forgot how you loved to be loved. The magic left and I allowed that. I hadn’t the courage to address it. And now you are gone.

I’m not a fan of goodbyes, but as disdainful as I am of them, in certain situations they are necessary and owed. So, I take this opportunity to say goodbye to you, because you did not have the respect to do so. Though I’m writhing in misery as I write these words, I don’t regret a thing. I know what it is to truly feel alive. You’ve ignited my heart and incinerated my soul. I hope you find everything you’re looking for in this hideous, beautiful world. Onward!

I hope never to see you again, not particularly because I have ill feelings for you, but because I want to remember you as you once were, and not as who you’ve become.