Dear little one,
I'm not sure why I keep writing you these dismal letters, and for that I offer up an empty apology. Sometimes I write to you to warn you of the troubles that lie ahead, sometimes I write to tell you that things get better, and sometimes - when my heart is rubbed raw against my ribcage and I've exhausted the ears of those closest to me - I write to you because you're the only one left who will listen.
I'm sorry for writing you about this again. (And I'm sorry that you will eventually grow up to become this girl who apologizes to herself for talking about the aches in her own soul.) I'm sorry that this is what you have to look forward to, and I'm sorry that there's nothing you can do about it.
Things aren't always this bad, and I'd be lying to you if I said that you can't handle it eventually. But there's this hopeless ravine that will grow inside you, a great cavernous maw ready to swallow you up on nights like these.
Why was a heart like yours created without a partner's to match? How could there not be a single heart like yours in all the world?
Is this the curse of the artist? To feel so much and be given so little to feel with another person? To drown in an ocean of your own thoughts with no hopes for rescue, or someone to drown with? Or someone to float with?
God, just someone! Anyone.
Surely, there's someone who can see you for who you are, who can hear you the way you need to be heard. Surely, there's someone like you, with a restless soul who understands the world the way you do. Surely, the world is not all just pretty faces and empty skulls.
Surely, there is someone out there, someone clinging to the same hollow hope, of finding someone alike in heart.
God, there's got to be somebody who feels like I do inside!
Right?
Nights like these are nights where you want to grip your hair and scream until your throat is bloody and your lungs are weak. Tonight is a night of exasperated miserable loneliness and, little one, you will grow only too accustomed to the feel of its icy fingers down your arms.
Empty arms.
Empty bed.
Emptiness.
How are you supposed to survive without someone to hold when this heart was made so obviously to love another? How is this great big world devoid of a partner for you - for me? How can this heart be so hungry for something it has never tasted, and (from what I've seen so far) never will?
I say all this, but I know the wicked truth of it.
This heart has a partner. Only one. Only one person on the face of the planet could love a heart like this in the way that this heart demands.
And he'll never know of this heart's existence, because that's the merciless irony of this life. He'll go on to find someone prettier, thinner, more interesting than you and me. He'll be captivated and she'll be smitten (oh, she'd better be smitten to have snagged a treasure like him) and you and I will be just some passerby on the sidewalk.
Who is he?
Why can't there be more like him?
God, why is this yearning for an impossible person so painful?
God, why was this heart made to feel incomplete and empty?
God, someone tell me, please!
Why do I itch to have lonely lyrics embedded in my skin as a constant reminder of how lonesome I feel? Why does no one understand when I say I'm aching, withering inside my own body? Why does no one care when I cannot stop crying on a Wednesday night because I feel so alone?
Why do I feel so lonely all the time?
Why isn't there anyone out there who knows what is going on inside of me?
How could I possibly be so alone on this planet that houses billions of people?
I don't have answers for us, Savannah.
You, me - we're valuable. I say that because everyone says that when someone is sad, so I'm saying it to us, even though I don't understand the words anymore.
Love,
Yourself
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
A letter to my younger self: concerning the little lioness
Dear Savannah,
There is a girl who is terrifying both in her presence and in her absolutely ground-shattering beauty. She's got eyes like the core of the sun and a heart that burns just as hot. The blood that rushes under her skin is full of stories, full of words gone unexpressed.
A lioness.
She was raised with the wildebeests and the gazelles, but fearing her teeth and her claws, they tore off her mane and withheld her power from her.
"Don't let her know the truth," they chattered to themselves. "She can't know what she is."
And so the queen of the savanna was raised to believe herself a peasant for seventeen long years.
And yet, try as they might to conceal her identity from her, she was always so distinctly different. When the beasts of the earth would stalk too close to her flock - to her haphazard clan - when the vultures would hover above the wounded members of her pride, a deep and unearthly growl could be heard from her chest, an outraged hum that could be felt for miles.
And when her lips did part, teeth bared, eyes gleaming with blood lust and vengeance, a roar did erupt from within her. A warning and a promise to those who wanted to hurt the ones she held close.
Clipped claws, filed down fangs, and mangled mane, yet her roar was defiantly leonine and the world did quake under her paws.
When she roared, the wildebeests and gazelles nearby pricked up their ears, and, realizing they had a predator on their side, a weapon to rely upon, began to trust their own hooves and horns. The growl of the little lioness had made their enemies retreat in fear, but it had given them a new found strength in their own bones.
Soon the wildebeests were not so frightened of the neighbouring hyenas, tigers, and coyotes. They themselves began to fend off attackers. They bared their teeth and roared themselves, becoming more lionlike in the mere presence of their little guardian.
Yet for all she was and didn't yet know, the little lioness could not roar for herself. When a predator would prowl around her, she would tuck her tail and lower her head, submitting herself to the most vicious of attacks.
"Roar at them," her wildebeest family would tell her. "You are more dangerous than them!"
"I cannot roar at them," she would say, ears pressed flat against her head. "I am not a lion. I am a wildebeest, and this is just the order of things."
And so the lioness, though ruthless when defending her family, could not stand up on her own paws and lift her eyes to her attackers.
This story isn't about you, Savannah. This story is about a girl you have watched grow up your whole life. A girl who has, does, and will continue to defend you unto your dying day. A girl who would look up into the eyes of your hard-hearted friends and tell them where to shove their rude remarks.
A girl who developed a spine for both you and herself growing up because you were too timid to stand up for yourself.
She's your bodyguard, your confidant, and the person who would stand by you even if you made an ass of yourself. (And you do. You do that surprisingly often these days.)
Her heart is too big for her narrow ribs, and her arms are disarmingly thin, and she keeps her mane cut short because she hates to have her heart on her sleeve for everyone to jeer at and ridicule, but do not be misled. There's a depth in her, a hurting and a longing to be loved, that cannot be seen from the surface.
Her thoughts will spill out of her mouth in verse, in poems of passion and rage, in a rhythm that makes your heart beat out of tune by comparison.
You will watch her roar for you, for others, for friends who do not deserve her loyalty, for jealous and worrisome wildebeests - and you will wonder how you could possibly share blood with someone so fearsome and terrifying as she.
But Savannah, little wildebeest, I need you - I plead you - to gain your footing and roar for her when she cannot defend herself.
You see, as unabashedly terrifying as she may be, she's got a soft heart and a weary voice when she's attacked.
"Well, I deserve it," she'll say. "They're right. I was wrong to do that."
When you hear this, strap on your shin guards and go hunting. Track down her adversaries and make them shit themselves in fear of hurting her again. Strip them of their claws and carry those parts back to her as an offering of gratitude.
Savannah, your little sister is a remarkable work of art, a cumulation of little dashes of paint on a canvass. She has the entire ocean and every star tucked away in her chest - so many feelings and thoughts and desires. She's an ever-evolving kaleidoscope. She is the best friend you will ever have, and you owe it to her to protect her from the hyenas. Return the favor.
She's the most valuable person you will ever have in your life, and don't you damn forget it.
Love,
Yourself
There is a girl who is terrifying both in her presence and in her absolutely ground-shattering beauty. She's got eyes like the core of the sun and a heart that burns just as hot. The blood that rushes under her skin is full of stories, full of words gone unexpressed.
A lioness.
She was raised with the wildebeests and the gazelles, but fearing her teeth and her claws, they tore off her mane and withheld her power from her.
"Don't let her know the truth," they chattered to themselves. "She can't know what she is."
And so the queen of the savanna was raised to believe herself a peasant for seventeen long years.
And yet, try as they might to conceal her identity from her, she was always so distinctly different. When the beasts of the earth would stalk too close to her flock - to her haphazard clan - when the vultures would hover above the wounded members of her pride, a deep and unearthly growl could be heard from her chest, an outraged hum that could be felt for miles.
And when her lips did part, teeth bared, eyes gleaming with blood lust and vengeance, a roar did erupt from within her. A warning and a promise to those who wanted to hurt the ones she held close.
Clipped claws, filed down fangs, and mangled mane, yet her roar was defiantly leonine and the world did quake under her paws.
When she roared, the wildebeests and gazelles nearby pricked up their ears, and, realizing they had a predator on their side, a weapon to rely upon, began to trust their own hooves and horns. The growl of the little lioness had made their enemies retreat in fear, but it had given them a new found strength in their own bones.
Soon the wildebeests were not so frightened of the neighbouring hyenas, tigers, and coyotes. They themselves began to fend off attackers. They bared their teeth and roared themselves, becoming more lionlike in the mere presence of their little guardian.
Yet for all she was and didn't yet know, the little lioness could not roar for herself. When a predator would prowl around her, she would tuck her tail and lower her head, submitting herself to the most vicious of attacks.
"Roar at them," her wildebeest family would tell her. "You are more dangerous than them!"
"I cannot roar at them," she would say, ears pressed flat against her head. "I am not a lion. I am a wildebeest, and this is just the order of things."
And so the lioness, though ruthless when defending her family, could not stand up on her own paws and lift her eyes to her attackers.
This story isn't about you, Savannah. This story is about a girl you have watched grow up your whole life. A girl who has, does, and will continue to defend you unto your dying day. A girl who would look up into the eyes of your hard-hearted friends and tell them where to shove their rude remarks.
A girl who developed a spine for both you and herself growing up because you were too timid to stand up for yourself.
She's your bodyguard, your confidant, and the person who would stand by you even if you made an ass of yourself. (And you do. You do that surprisingly often these days.)
Her heart is too big for her narrow ribs, and her arms are disarmingly thin, and she keeps her mane cut short because she hates to have her heart on her sleeve for everyone to jeer at and ridicule, but do not be misled. There's a depth in her, a hurting and a longing to be loved, that cannot be seen from the surface.
Her thoughts will spill out of her mouth in verse, in poems of passion and rage, in a rhythm that makes your heart beat out of tune by comparison.
You will watch her roar for you, for others, for friends who do not deserve her loyalty, for jealous and worrisome wildebeests - and you will wonder how you could possibly share blood with someone so fearsome and terrifying as she.
But Savannah, little wildebeest, I need you - I plead you - to gain your footing and roar for her when she cannot defend herself.
You see, as unabashedly terrifying as she may be, she's got a soft heart and a weary voice when she's attacked.
"Well, I deserve it," she'll say. "They're right. I was wrong to do that."
When you hear this, strap on your shin guards and go hunting. Track down her adversaries and make them shit themselves in fear of hurting her again. Strip them of their claws and carry those parts back to her as an offering of gratitude.
Savannah, your little sister is a remarkable work of art, a cumulation of little dashes of paint on a canvass. She has the entire ocean and every star tucked away in her chest - so many feelings and thoughts and desires. She's an ever-evolving kaleidoscope. She is the best friend you will ever have, and you owe it to her to protect her from the hyenas. Return the favor.
She's the most valuable person you will ever have in your life, and don't you damn forget it.
Love,
Yourself
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