#UnsentLetters: You’re no shameful secret

Unsent  Letters is a newsletter curated by Shakira Sison featuring unspoken sentiments gathered from reader submissions. It features unsent letters to real and imagined lovers. Rappler publishes Unsent Letters every Saturday.

I will not bury you like some shameful secret; honey, you’re not that special. Instead, I will write about you, tell the world why I had to extinguish our fire, how you burned me in places that tuck nicely under my dress, hidden from view, unknown to strangers, but not any less painful or ugly.

For the longest time, I have been the only one who understood these wounds and it was easy for you to pick at the scabs, but I won’t have that anymore. Four years of stuttering, fumbling about, looking for the right words to say when asked about you were enough. I’ve had enough.

I met the worst version of myself when I was with you. You changed me, turned me into a monster, opened up highways lined with trees of thorns and shards. For someone who promised me rainbows, you made pins and needles rain from the sky. You hurt me. I hurt you. We hurt people around us. We hurt ourselves. We called it love.

It was love.

There were good old days. I still remember them with some fondness, some sadness, some wondering why it didn’t go on like that. At what point did we start throwing knives at each other? When did our mouths give poisonous kisses? How did we go from driving around in your purple bike to pushing and pulling each other in different directions at once? I remember us rather happy. I remember us being good and strong for the other. What happened?

I used to think it was all my fault, that I was the difficult one. I didn’t know how to be somebody’s girlfriend because I can only express my love and devotion in certain ways. I made things hard for you because I was too smart, too logical, too practical, too intense, too independent, too principled, too strong, too complicated, too unconventional.

It must’ve been awful to be with someone like that when you only wanted matching shirts and flowers. And I wish I could’ve been just that for you. I tried, I really did. It was the hardest that I ever tried in a relationship (my track record will speak for itself), but I just wasn’t the person you needed me to be.

I’d say sorry, but I’m not.

Because in your frustration, you destroyed me. You pushed me to do things once unimaginable. I will forever regret the first time I ever laid my hand on you when you wouldn’t stop insulting me. That opened a whole chapter of exchanging punches and kicks and slaps. I will forever regret the first time I resorted to cutting myself just so you’d finally stop harassing me.

That opened another chapter, this time of wounds and bleeding and scars, until they meant nothing to you. I will forever regret that time I overdosed with various pills and I could swear I felt myself dying and you were there trying to save me and I couldn’t breathe and my muscles stiffened and I couldn’t walk and my heart beat faster and faster I thought it’d jump right out of my chest and somehow I got naked and it was all over and I was weak much too weak and you wanted to have your way with me and I didn’t want to because it didn’t feel right especially after the hell I’ve been through and I refused and you insisted and I tried to fight you off but you were stronger and you kissed, rode, rubbed, glided, pushed, faster and faster still and you cried out and it was over and I felt disgusted with you and I felt disgusted with myself and I felt wronged and I felt violated and devalued and I hated myself for allowing you to use me like that and it wasn’t the first nor the last time.

You ruined me, see.

I loved you anyway. Unconditionally. In ways I can’t begin to fathom. In volumes I can’t begin to speak. I loved you in all your crookedness and insecurity and imperfection. I loved your good and your evil. I loved you even when we were falling apart, until I fell apart.

People ask me if I ever regret being with you and I don’t think twice before saying yes. Not because my love wasn’t real or was wasted, but because I would’ve wanted better for you. I still do. You’re not a bad person, I know and believe this with all my heart, but there was something about you and I that led us to be awful people to ourselves and each other. If there was any way of knowing then that we’d end up like this, I would have politely refused dinner with you that one summer eve. If there was any way of knowing then that we’d be better off without the other, I wouldn’t have invited you into my arms. 

You’re not my shameful secret; honey, you’re a lesson learned. – Rappler.com

Do you have your own unsent letters? Send them to unsentletters@rappler.com.  Selected letters will be anonymized and edited for clarity and brevity. By submitting to Unsent Letters, you represent that the work is your own and that you waive your rights to it for present and future publication.