We had broken up.
No contact; because talking would pull us back into the cycles of anger, offense, and defense.
I wrote to you; scribbling urgently on pages until I couldn’t see through the tears that made the dark ink bleed. To soothe my heart, I had committed to writing a letter every time I missed you. Every time I wanted to say something to you, I would say it on paper. After all, I did not need for you to hear or receive it. I simply needed to have shared it.
Several weeks and a full notebook later, I had accumulated a hefty stack of personal confessions, hopes, odes, and prayers. My strategy was working well enough.
And then, for whatever reason… perhaps in my naivety, I sought your acknowledgement of my feelings… I gave you those letters. In between awkward platitudes and under a sky that seemed to hang lower than usual, I handed over to you the thick envelope of my heart.
Something inside me died when I learned that you threw it away. The risk had not even occurred to me. I thought I might never write again. What you did was sacrilegious, it was final, and it was necessary.
In the wrong hands, the depth of my vulnerability is no different from used toilet paper and rotting produce.
Now I write, not to grieve, but to survive.
-Lele M
Lele Muthali 