‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ Querida : @newllyork

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ Querida : @TavishGirl

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ Querida : @goldenkhaje

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ˆᗜˆ : پیرمرد

‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ˆᗜˆ : بچه‌ژاپن

to the one I never learned to use. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

It is dark again. I lit a cigarette because the night was too quiet, and for a moment the smoke looked like it knew where you had gone. It curled toward the ceiling, slow and certain, and I hated it for leaving me, too.

your letters are still here. I burned one tonight. I don't remember why. perhaps I wanted to see something of yours become light instead of dust. the paper blackened at the edges, and your words disappeared one by one, as if they had finally grown tired of waiting for me to answer.

the room still smells like you sometimes. or maybe I have simply become very good at missing you.

I wonder if you knew what you left behind. not the photographs, not your clothes, not the little things I could put in a drawer and pretend were enough. I mean the silence. you left so much of it.

there are nights when I almost speak to you. I stop myself.

then I remember that you have never been very good at answering. I wish I could tell you that I am better now. It would be kinder. It would make this letter feel like an ending.

but the truth is, I still look toward the door when the room gets quiet. I still think there are footsteps outside.

and sometimes, when the cigarette burns all the way to my fingers, I swear I can feel your hand taking it from me.

i know better than to turn around.

still, I do. every single time.

for dear : @bi1ble

to the person I have been mourning in pieces

I was cruel to you.‌ there. I have written it down at last.

I loved you as if loving you meant I had the right to every part of you. every hour. every name in your phone. every person you smiled at when I wasn't there. I wanted to know where you were, who you were with, what you were thinking. I wanted your world to have no doors I couldn't open.

and you let me. i wish you hadn't.

I mistook your patience for permission. I mistook your staying for proof that I was right. every time you forgave me, I became a little more certain that I could hurt you and still be loved afterward.

I remember the jealousy now. how ugly it was.

how I could turn your happiness into evidence against you. how I could hear you laugh with someone else and spend the rest of the night convincing myself that I was losing you.

you were never mine to lose.

i know that now. that is the sentence that follows me everywhere.

I would give anything to hear you say my name again, and then I think of all the times you said it softly, asking me to stop, asking me to trust you, asking me to love you without closing my hands around your throat.

and I didn't understand. i understand now.

that is the cruelest thing about losing you. there is no one left to become better for.

so here I am, loving you properly at last, in the only way you cannot feel. by letting you go.

by admitting that you were always free. by wishing, with everything I have left, that I had learned that before you disappeared from my life.

i loved you so much. I love you so much. I just wish I had known how to love you without making it hurt.

for dear : @dxt1h

to my dearest sunlight.‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌

the guns have been quiet for three nights. I thought silence would feel like mercy. It doesn't.

It only gives me enough room to hear everything I have been trying not to remember.

I still have your last letter. the paper has gone soft from being folded and unfolded too many times. I know every crease by heart. I know where your handwriting becomes smaller when you are trying not to say something.

you told me to come home. I wanted to. God, I wanted to.

there are nights here when the smoke settles low over the ground and the whole world looks like it has been rubbed away with a dirty thumb. those are the nights I think of your kitchen. the chipped cup you hated. the little window above the sink. the way morning used to find you before it found me.

I never knew a person could miss a room. I never knew I could miss the sound of someone putting down a cup.

everyone here talks about surviving as if it is the same thing as returning. It isn't.

some part of me has already gone home to you. some part of me never will.

tonight, I tore open your letter again just to see your name. I held it near the fire, but I couldn't make myself burn it.

It felt too much like killing the last thing in this world that still knew me. so I folded it carefully.

I put it back inside my coat. and for a little while I pretended that when this is over, I will walk through our door, put my things down, and find you waiting there.

I know better. but let me have the lie tonight. the night is cold. the fire is almost gone.

and somewhere beyond all this smoke, I still love you. and I will always do.

for dear : @akutui

به تو، که نمی‌دانم چه‌چیزی خطابت کنم.

نمی‌دانم چند ساعت است اینجا نشسته‌ام، فقط می‌دانم آن‌قدر گذشته که هوا سرد شده و پاهایم دیگر گرمایشان را از دست داده‌اند، اما هنوز نتوانسته‌ام خودم را راضی کنم که از کنار اسمت بلند شوم و به خانه برگردم، به همان خانه‌ای که بعد از رفتنت دیگر هیچ‌وقت شبیه خانه نبود.

دستم را روی سنگ قبرت گذاشته‌ام و با انگشت‌هایم حروف اسمت را دنبال می‌کنم، انگار اگر آن‌ها را به اندازه‌ی کافی لمس کنم، چیزی از تو از زیر این سنگ به دستم می‌رسد؛ یک تکه از صدایت، گرمای دستت، یا حتی همان نگاه خسته‌ای که همیشه وقتی زیادی حرف می‌زدم به من می‌کردی.

همه می‌گویند باید بروم، و شاید حق با آن‌ها باشد، اما هیچ‌کس نمی‌فهمد وقتی آدم کسی را از دست می‌دهد، دیگر «رفتن» معنای سابقش را ندارد؛ من از اینجا می‌روم و تو همچنان همین‌جا می‌مانی، و بعد باید تمام مسیر برگشت را با این فکر تحمل کنم که هر قدمی که از قبرت دور می‌شوم، یک قدم دیگر از تو فاصله می‌گیرم.

گاهی با خودم فکر می‌کنم اگر فقط دست‌هایم را زیر خاک ببرم و کمی آن را کنار بزنم، شاید هنوز بتوانم به تو برسم، شاید هنوز آن‌قدر نزدیک باشی که وقتی کنارت می‌نشینم، برای چند لحظه فراموش کنم که دیگر نمی‌توانی چشم‌هایت را باز کنی و نگاهم کنی.

می‌دانم فکر وحشتناکی است، اما امشب حتی از فکر کردن به آن هم نمی‌ترسم؛ حتی با خودم فکر کرده‌ام که شاید باید همین خاک را کنار بزنم و جایی کنار تو دراز بکشم، نه برای اینکه بخواهم به دنبال تو بیایم، فقط برای اینکه دیگر مجبور نباشم هر شب در اتاقی بخوابم که جای خالی تو از خودم بزرگ‌تر شده است.

شاید اگر کنار تو باشم، این سکوت کمتر اذیتم کند.

شاید اگر بدانم چند سانتی‌متر خاک بین ماست، بتوانم با آن کنار بیایم، چون تحمل این‌که تمام دنیا بین ما فاصله انداخته خیلی سخت‌تر است.

نمی‌دانم هنوز دوستت دارم یا نه، و از گفتن این جمله خجالت می‌کشم، چون فکر می‌کردم عشق باید چیزی باشد که بعد از مرگ هم واضح بماند، چیزی که آدم درباره‌اش شک نکند، اما حالا که تو نیستی، حتی احساسات خودم هم برایم غریبه شده‌اند و نمی‌دانم کدام قسمتشان متعلق به توست و کدام قسمت فقط ترس من از تنها ماندن است.

گاهی دلم برای خودت تنگ می‌شود و گاهی برای آدمی که کنار تو بودم، و نمی‌توانم تشخیص بدهم کدام درد بیشتر است.

دلم برای صدایت تنگ شده، برای راه رفتنت در خانه، برای اینکه بدون اینکه بفهمی لیوانت را از روی میز برمی‌داشتم و جایش می‌گذاشتم، برای تمام چیزهای کوچکی که آن موقع حتی ارزش به خاطر سپردن نداشتند و حالا حاضر بودم تمام عمرم را بدهم تا فقط یک بار دیگر اتفاق بیفتند.

کاش می‌دانستم آخرین باری که دیدمت، آخرین بار است. کاش بیشتر نگاهت می‌کردم.

کاش آن روز به جای اینکه فکر کنم فردا هم هست، چند دقیقه بیشتر کنارت می‌ماندم و به صورتت نگاه می‌کردم، چون حالا تمام چیزی که از آن روز برایم مانده، چند تصویر شکسته است که هرچه بیشتر سعی می‌کنم نگهشان دارم، بیشتر از هم می‌پاشند.

من از فراموش کردنت بیشتر از نبودنت می‌ترسم.

می‌ترسم یک روز صدایت را دیگر درست به یاد نیاورم، یا صورتت را آن‌طور که بود نبینم، یا یک صبح از خواب بیدار شوم و اولین چیزی که به ذهنم می‌رسد دیگر تو نباشی و آن وقت بفهمم که حتی غم هم می‌تواند آدم را ترک کند.

برای همین هنوز اینجا نشسته‌ام.

شاید چون این قبر تنها جایی است که می‌توانم مطمئن باشم تو را فراموش نکرده‌ام.

پس اگر امشب دیر کردم، اگر دوباره کسی آمد و گفت باید بروم، شاید فقط سرم را پایین بیندازم و بگویم هنوز حرفم تمام نشده، چون راستش را بخواهی، من حتی نمی‌دانم چه می‌خواهم بگویم.

فقط می‌خواهم اینجا بمانم.

کنار تو، کنار این خاک سرد، و برای چند ساعت وانمود کنم که فاصله‌ی بین ما چیزی نیست که نمی‌توانم با دست‌هایم کنار بزنمش. شاید فردا برگردم.

شاید فردا بتوانم بلند شوم و بروم.

اما امشب، اگر قرار باشد فقط یک شب دیگر را به تو نزدیک باشم، می‌خواهم همین‌جا بمانم و دستم را روی خاک بگذارم و تصور کنم که آن طرفش، تو هنوز جایی نزدیک منی.

برائ @ntegry عزیز.

to the one who was mine.‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

I still hate the way you looked at me that night. not because you were afraid.

because you weren't. you stood by the door with your coat already on, telling me that you couldn't do this anymore, and I remember thinking how beautiful you looked when you had finally stopped pretending to love me.

i asked you where you were going. you said, “Away.”

Such a small word. i have hated it ever since.

i wanted to tell you that I could change. I wanted to promise you mornings without arguments, nights without questions, a life where I wouldn't need to know where you were every second of the day. I wanted to become the kind of person you could love without feeling trapped.

but you were already reaching for the door.

and I couldn't let you. i know what that makes me.

don't think I haven't spent every night since then thinking about it. I remember your face. I remember the last thing you said to me. I remember how badly I wanted to hear you say that you loved me one more time.

you didn't. i suppose that should have been enough.

but I have never been very good at letting you go. i kept everything you left behind.

your sweater is still hanging in the wardrobe. your cup is still on the kitchen shelf. I haven't moved anything because somehow moving your things feels more final than losing you did.

sometimes I still talk to you. i tell you about my day. i tell you when it rains.

I tell you that I finally learned how to make the coffee the way you liked it. and sometimes I tell you that I'm sorry.

i don't know if you would forgive me. i don't even know if I want you to.

because the ugliest truth is that, even now, after all this time, there is a part of me that is relieved you cannot leave me again.

you can't fall in love with someone else. you can't wake up one morning and decide that I am no longer enough.

you can't stand at the door with your coat in your hands and say away.

you are mine in the only way I ever knew how to make you stay.

i told everyone you left me. they believed me.

you were always so good at disappearing and I suppose I finally learned from you.

i buried the letter you left behind, i buried the photographs and i buried the truth.

and tomorrow, when they ask me again where you went, I will give them the same answer I have given for years.

you wanted a life without me. and I couldn't bear to give it to you.

for dear : @suemit

to you, wherever the years have taken you

I still miss you in places where I shouldn't. I miss you when the kettle begins to whistle, because you used to complain that I always let it boil too long. I miss you when it rains against the windows, when the streetlights come on one by one, when I wake up in the middle of the night and, for one terrible second, forget that there is no one beside me.

that second is the worst.
bcause for that tiny piece of time, I have you back.

then I reach across the bed, and there is only cold linen beneath my hand, and I remember.

I remember everything.

I remember how your voice sounded when you were tired. I remember the way you would say my name when you wanted me to listen. I remember how you used to fall asleep halfway through a conversation and deny it when I told you the next morning.

I remember things I never thought I would miss. I would give almost anything to hear you complain about something meaningless again.

Isn't that cruel?

When you were here i thought I had forever to remember you. I thought there would always be another morning, another conversation, another night when I could look at you and think, I'll tell you tomorrow.

I have so many tomorrows now but none of them have you in them.

sometimes I wonder if you ever think of me.

not in some grand, tragic way. I don't need you to ache for me. I just want to know whether, somewhere in the middle of an ordinary day, something still reminds you of the life we had.

a song. a certain kind of weather. the smell of someone's perfume passing you in the street.

anything.

I want to believe I exist somewhere outside my own memory.

because lately I am afraid that I don't.

everyone else has continued living, and I have continued too, I suppose, but there is a strange difference between moving forward and actually leaving something behind.

I never left you behind.

I just learned how to carry you without anyone noticing.

I carry you through grocery stores and crowded streets and quiet mornings. I carry you into conversations where nobody knows why I suddenly go silent. I carry you home every night and place you carefully beside me in the dark, where no one can see how much I still miss you.

and sometimes, when I am almost asleep, I let myself believe that you are there.

I imagine your breathing beside me. I imagine turning toward you.

I imagine saying, I missed you and then morning comes.

It always does.

that is the part I hate most. not that you are gone but that the world keeps becoming morning without you.

i wish I could tell you that it gets easier. maybe it does.

maybe I am simply getting better at hiding the wound.

but there are still nights when I would trade every year I have left just to have five minutes with you again.

five minutes. I wouldn't ask for forever. I wouldn't even ask you to stay.

I would just sit beside you and look at you long enough to memorize your face one more time.

then I would let you go.

I think. God, I hope I could.

because the truth is, I have spent so long missing you that sometimes I cannot remember who I was before I knew what it meant to lose someone I would have chosen every single time.

and if there is any place where you can hear this, if somehow these words can cross whatever distance has grown between us, then I hope you know one thing.

I loved you. I love you.

I don't know which tense is supposed to be correct anymore.

I only know that every version of me, in every life I can imagine, still turns toward you. and every time, there is nothing there.

only the empty side of the bed. only the morning. only me, waking up again.

for dear : @sm7jj

to you, the person i mourn the most everyday.

I have spent so many nights trying to remember who I was before you, but every time I look back, all I can find is you, scattered through everything I became; I gave you my time, my plans, my sleep, my friends, every little dream I once kept only for myself, and I gave it all so willingly that I never noticed how much of me was disappearing until you were gone and I realized I had built my whole life around someone who could no longer come home. I still keep your things where you left them, still turn my head when I hear footsteps in the hallway, still wake in the middle of the night and reach toward the empty side of the bed before remembering, and sometimes I hate myself for how easily my heart still believes you might come back.

I sit beside your grave whenever the world becomes too loud, pressing my hand against the cold stone and wondering whether you would be angry with me for wanting to follow you, because I don't know what to do with all this love now that there is nowhere for it to go; I have spent so long giving everything to you that I don't know what is left for me, and some nights I am frightened by how little I care about finding out, but then I remember the way you used to look at me when you wanted me to keep going, and somehow that memory is still enough to make me stay a little longer. I wish I could tell you that I am ready to let you go, but I would be lying, and maybe tonight I don't want to lie to you anymore, so I'll just sit here beneath the dark sky and talk to you until the night becomes morning, pretending for a little while that somewhere beneath all this silence, you can still hear me.

for dear : @goldenkhaje

to you the prettiest cloud in the dark misty sky

I haven't spoken to anyone in weeks, and I don't think anyone has noticed enough to ask anymore; I spend most of my days in my room with the curtains half closed, brushing and rebraiding my hair whenever my hands begin to shake, because there is something comforting about having a small thing I can undo and do again, something that doesn't disappear no matter how many times I pull it apart. Your face is everywhere here, not in photographs, because I was afraid photographs would eventually feel unfamiliar, but in the pages of my notebooks, where I have drawn you so many times that the shape of your eyes has become something my hands remember better than my mind does. I draw you from memory every night, and every night something is wrong; sometimes your smile is too wide, sometimes your eyes look like a stranger's, sometimes I forget the exact shape of your mouth and sit there with the pencil hovering over the page, terrified that this is how forgetting begins, quietly, with one little detail that I can no longer return to.

I wonder what you would think if you could see me now, sitting on the floor with my hair falling over my shoulders, surrounded by half-finished drawings of the face I am terrified of losing, while the rest of the world keeps knocking softly at a door I haven't opened in a very long time. I don't answer them because I don't know how to explain that talking about you makes you feel less real somehow, as though saying your name aloud will turn you into a story instead of the person who used to sit beside me, and I would rather keep you here in the silence where I can still pretend that I know you. So I keep drawing, and I keep braiding my hair, and I keep filling page after page with your eyes, your hands, the little crease beside your mouth when you smiled, trying to make something permanent out of a memory that refuses to stay still, because if I can draw you perfectly just once, perhaps I can finally close the notebook and believe that I have saved you somewhere.

for dear : @saddestberie

to my first, but for the last time. ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌

this is the first letter I have ever written you, which is almost funny when you think about how much I used to talk; I could fill an entire afternoon telling you absolutely nothing, jumping from one story to another, dragging you outside because the sun was out, buying you things you didn't need, making you laugh when you were trying not to, and somehow I always had enough energy for one more song, one more walk, one more hour with you, as if being beside you had turned my body into something that didn't understand exhaustion. You used to call me your little energy drink, and I would laugh every time, never imagining that one day I would become someone who walks through the same streets with tears running down their face and doesn't even notice when people stare.

I don't know how to write to you because I have never had to speak to someone who couldn't interrupt me, couldn't roll their eyes when I rambled, couldn't reach over and wipe my tears before I could pretend I wasn't crying; I keep wanting to tell you everything that happened today, something stupid I saw in a shop window, the song that came on while I was walking, the way the sky looked before it rained, and then I remember that there is nowhere to bring all these little pieces of my life anymore. So this is my first letter, and I suppose it is also the first time I have ever had to admit that I am tired, that I don't feel like being bright for anyone, that I would give anything to hear you tell me to stop crying because you know perfectly well I will ignore you anyway, and that the person who used to bring all that light into your life is now walking home through the dark with your name in their head, crying so hard they can barely see where they are going, carrying all this love with nowhere left to put it.

for dear : @bitchycircus