Thirteen Letters I Never Wrote: Dear P, I Could Have Loved You.

Dear P,

I truly believe I could have loved you. I truly believe you could have loved me as well. But how would have that ever worked when we cannot stand to see each other be human? Like right now, tell me you're thinking of anything other than the poor syntax of my previous sentence, and I'll walk to you barefoot in the sun.

It's not just you, I'll admit that my standards for you are also not just high, they're harsh, and they've been that way since the day we met at that debate about Defence spending. That was so many years ago. I was nineteen-years old and you were twenty. I had a ring in my eyebrow, and I carried giant boxes of matches with me everywhere I went. We believed we were changing the world with our posters and willingness to get arrested. It all got so much worse, no? The world, I mean. Comparatively, what we used to fight then seems so small and insignificant, I wish I could just tell those kids to let it be for a while and go watch a movie, but they wouldn't listen. I wouldn't listen even today, and neither would you. We're just offended I called the struggle insignificant. Well, not you, you seem never to be offended by anything at all. You seem to dismiss any criticism that comes your way with such ease, like a fly landing on your nose. That's why I was instantly drawn to you, and I have wondered why you were instantly drawn to me, but I know better than to ask you. You're the only person in the world who doesn't answer my questions, you barely seem to register them.

You may be the first, and perhaps even the only, person I was ever attracted to because they reminded me, of me. Brilliant and unemotional. I don't think I'm brilliant, and I may even say that about myself to someone else, but I would never say it to you, because in one second you would prove to me that I am wrong. The likeness was more about the lack of emotion. I'm not an unemotional person, and neither are you, but we have our emotions theoretically. You were the first person to not call me a robot, because you are one too. You are the only other person I know who is more likely to state their emotions as an analysis of the situation, instead of just smiling like a fucking person. Our emotions don't interfere with what we do nor how we interact with people. I loved every conversation we had, because I was able to the version of myself that doesn't have to apply all the social behaviours I had to be taught.

Can you believe I haven't seen you in almost a decade? It doesn't feel that long, and I suppose it may be because we check in so thoroughly every two years. Don't worry I didn't expect you to respond to the letter I mailed to you eighteen months ago, it was sheer whimsy on my part to even send it, I guess I just wanted to show you my handwriting once more. I wouldn't want to show that to anyone else, but to you, I know you're looking at a lot more things than anyone else. That letter wasn't for communication, it was for romance, and you are not, and perhaps I would have been heartbroken if you had actually sent me back a letter, I cannot bear to see you act like a human being and do the decent thing. I prefer to catch up with you as we do, by exchanging a flurry of text messages over the course of two days every two years. I don't know why we do that, but when we do, it feels like we never ended things between us. You do realise that we didn't, don't you? I didn't leave you, you didn't leave me. I just left the city, and you stayed to finish your degree. We never said goodbye, and just as much as we never really "got together," we never really "broke up" either even though we lived in the same house at one point. If I were around you today, I would behave exactly as I did when I was around you then and while I wouldn't deign to presume how you would behave, I know you would too.

I learnt a wonderful term recently: Comet Relationships. It alludes to a love who passes through your life semi-regularly, and then leaves without an expectation of continuity or even romance. The term made me think of you instantly, we haven't been lovers in a long time, but each time you appear in my life, I cannot remember exactly when we started or even stopped being lovers. You really sucked at hurting me. Well, you know that. I appreciate that you tried for my sake because it's my thing, but it's really not my thing to see you try. I cannot remember how it felt when you fucked me either, I cannot remember longing for it, or asking for it either. You never showed me any affection, and never extended any option for pleasure. You never asked where I was when I didn't come home at night. Living with you, was like living with a fantasy. Even when you were close enough to me for me to smell myself on your fingers, you didn't feel real to me. That's why you cannot be human around me. That's why I cannot stand it. I reserve the right to preserve the fantastical version of you, and I add to your character, and its story, as and when I please. I know you do that with me too. In some sick way, I think we'll always be each other's back-up plan.

Which is okay, because whatever that loveless, emotionless overly-structured dalliance was between was, we know it works. The world was muted around you, and I liked that. The sex was weird. I like that too. Even today, after so many years of dating and fucking everything that I liked, you're still one of the weirdest freaks I have met. I know many men who are into humiliation and degradation, but I don't know any who are into it as politically as you are. It's not even possible to explain to people, but you get it, you get the motivations behind the reduction of privileged young woman like myself. You were always honest about who you are, but unlike other people for whom honesty is the deliberate moral choice, for you it was just because you didn't believe you owed it to anyone to expend the energy to think up and commit to a lie. There are very few people I know who was as into the dynamic of "property" as you are, and I know none who implement that entirely without inflicting pain. That's not your thing, though. You're all thoughts and words, no touches, but somehow with you, it works. If it were anyone else, I would judge.

I cannot judge you. You are the only person in my life who can do no wrong, and that is dangerous, and maybe that is why we always knew we shouldn't love one another. Well, you shouldn't love me, but I do. You know that, right? You do know that I love you? I would never be stupid enough to say that to you, I would simultaneously never hear the end of it and never hear anything about it. Yet I believe that you know this. How can I not love you? You are what I would design if I had to design a soulmate when I was thirteen, and it is not lost on me that you would balk the idea of a soul. I do too. Yet unlike you I know there can be ideas and things in the world that I do not agree with, but still feel. Things like love and a soul. Unlike you, I can balk at a thing, and still love it. You think that's hypocritical of me, I think it's just vast. Besides, you are the hypocritical one. You are this way, only with me. For the rest of the world, you make adjustments and adhere to social mores. I know you've loved women, and cared about them, and their pleasure. You will deny those things, as is your true personality, only to me. I am this way with everyone. Tell me, who is the hypocrite?

Actually, don't tell me. Don't admit any possible fault to me, it shatters the perfect illusion you left in my life. No matter what happens in my life, or yours, or the entire world, you are always unchanged. So I will abstain from showing my love for you, as I always have, and you will abstain from loving me, because it will ruin us, and the perfect distance we managed to retain, even when you were pissing inside my mouth.

With regards from a distant place,
Ancilla.