u/hopelesslookingleft

To the one I desire most,

You are absolutely wonderful. I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it in some way. I know what way I want that to be, but it’s not entirely my decision is it?

And yet, I know standing where I am brings its own risk. If it hasn’t happened already, I could entirely miss this. But if I move, I could lose it entirely. I need to map this out.

I have in front of me three options: Stay. Say. Leave.

1. ⁠Stay- I could keep this up forever. It’s tearing me up, and every day is a different feeling than the last. The human psyche was not built for this. But my worry is not breaking. My worry is that waiting for something to happen means forfeiting any control of the outcome. Whatever comes next will lack my fingerprints yet it will impact me all the same. And maybe you’ll be left to wonder: why didn’t he do something?
2. Say- I finally tell you everything, the whole truth and nothing but. I tell you you’re not just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, but you ARE the most amazing. That I can’t stop thinking about you and never want to stop. That your beauty is beyond the words humans have been creating since the time of stone tablets. That I get lost looking into your eyes because they are like galaxies full of the brightest stars and I cannot help but gaze in complete wonder. That I know the path ahead would be rough, but I would endure the journey as the Odysseus to your Penelope. And I could string that bow. I truly believe if things were different, we could make it. We’re great together. I would bask in the warmth of knowing I could spend every day of my life striving to make you happy, to make you proud of me. But that’s the thing: if I told you this, would you actually be proud? Or would you recoil knowing that I have been enduring this lie of omission for so long?
3. Leave- I don’t think I could choose this option and live. At least I would no longer be the man you know now. I couldn’t be. It would require me to rewire my brain, draw the neurons like the roots of a tree as it seeks to grow past and around. I have done this before. It would feel like the worst breakup imaginable, even if that’s not what it would be. I would become a fish un-learning to swim, a bird forgetting how to fly, or an ant leaving its colony by its own volition. Feeling this for you is so natural. My instincts would be shouting at me to do something that my body could not perform. My soul would implode in on itself and be forced to endure the abyss. And yet at the end, would I emerge better? I would know the outcome. It would be something I could hold, study, and figure out. The map for the rest of my life would appear before me on the page.

Maybe there’s no good choice here. Maybe there is one and the only way I choose it is to guess, like the world’s worst lottery. But one of these options must be the way forward. At this point, there is no going back.

First, an admission: I love it when we touch.

It’s not something that happens on purpose, at least I don’t think. You get close when we’re talking or when you are showing me something. You have leaned against me, or handed me something. There was that time I helped you down, reached out my hand as a support; it was brief, but there was no hesitation on either side.

I savor each of these moments when they come. I know I can’t seek them out. But it is as I told you: any moment with you, I try my best to take complete advantage of it. Because asking you for moments is, at best, heavily restricted.

It’s part of this duality I live in. I feel this gravity pulling me toward you. It wraps around my body and soul gently, the way vines wrap as they climb. It feels natural, comforting. When I told you that you are incredible, that I feel like a better person around you, that was my way of offering myself to the vines. I want to be a trellis, something they can grow on and flourish with each passing day.

At the same time, I know this opposite force exists. It doesn’t push me away so much as it holds me in place. I have compared us before to two separate people in the deep forest, visible to each other yet shielded by brush. We can look out to see each other through the thicket, but we dare not venture to the other’s space or seek to tear it away.

I see this image anytime I am reminded of all the reasons I cannot have more with you. I know that if I rip away a branch or try to burn it down, you will be gone before the smoke clears. Then I will have no idea where you are in this vast wilderness, and I would be cast out to wander it for eternity.

There are just some things I cannot do. Some aspects of your life I cannot be part of. Some things I cannot be let in on, even if you wanted to include me. And to be clear, I desperately want to be included, but I fear what might happen if I try.

This is the force that is guiding my life. Push-pull; climb-fall; in-out; light-dark; black and white; good and bad. There is no “or” here. Everything comes simultaneously, a violent whirlwind that envelops my spirit.

I had hoped maybe telling you that would lessen the forces. At first, I thought maybe it had worked. But it has become very clear that did not happen, and I am back into a state of suspension, looking at both sides of a crumbling bridge.

It cannot last forever. Stasis is not natural. Eventually, something either is or isn’t. I know I am overdue for this tremor on my life. I’ve been putting it off because I know it will destroy things, and I’m just not sure of exactly what it will take from me.

Yet, there is one more force. It’s something that has kept me here and kept you in my view; something that - while it is certainly tested and ferociously opposed - has proven to be constant. It’s a force so great that even the most violent winds known to man could not fully shake it from this foundation. It’s something that I would have to tear down slowly, piece-by-piece, rather than be wiped from the surface of the Earth.

That force is the truth that still resides inside of me. It’s the part I didn’t tell you: that I am hopelessly, unwaveringly in love with you. And maybe, at some point, I will tell you.
But I need to see you definitively looking out at me from the brush with eyes that say, “Kindly light a match, please.”

Eternally yours,
On the Left

Well, that’s that. You’re off on another adventure. And the next time we see each other, the moment will be upon us.

As in THE moment.

The moment when the truth slips from my tongue and hopefully finds your ears willing to accept it. When I let you glimpse the sun reflecting brightly off of the rushing river that is my love for you.

Just a glimpse, though. I’m afraid if I tried to take you down it, even in the most comfortable craft I can find, it would be too much for you. I can guide you, but you’re the one that has to make the choice to be submerged.

I still wonder if that’s the best way to do it. “I am truly and deeply in love with you” feels like it would be too strong, like throwing you into the river and asking you to swim. “You are the most amazing person I have ever met and I count myself lucky any day I get to be around you or talk to you” seems like it would be fine.

But how would you respond to “just fine”? Maybe I need to be more direct.

I think I feel you push and pull. Lately your communication has been more….communal. Almost like you are reaching for safety, ducking underneath the tent before the clouds above conspire to create the rain that would fall on your very well put together life.

You don’t include me as much as you could, and yet you still include me more than you would if I truly meant nothing to you. Do you even realize? Or is this your way of recalculating, taking a step back to survey the board to make sure you have the pieces in place for both protection and attack?

Regardless, it tears at me on the inside. I’m probably too sensitive to it. This has been such a busy summer for you, and there have been times when it felt like you wanted me right next to you.

So as I sit in this desert between moments, this purgatory in which I can’t tell if I’m falling away from you or just momentarily suspended, I remember what it was like that one day.

They were away, and you were on your own to manage. It’s something that happens frequently but I still can’t tell if it bothers you. And in that moment of unlimited space, where you had to simultaneously endure the challenge and enjoy your break, you reached for me.

You showed me what you saw. You brought me into your thoughts. You bounced things off of me while also making me feel important. I can’t be the only one available for you in times like that. Surely not, knowing you. I have to think there’s a reason you still do.

They returned. Whole again. And again, I moved into the periphery. You still found ways to bring me in, if only for brief moments.

And I still wonder, what is this dance? At times it feels on purpose, the steps and moves calculated like some sort of spiritual lambada. Others, it seems like the natural flow of your mind, as if you are a bird migrating and I’m the nice big tree by the pond you recall exists when the moment feels right. There when needed, proud to stand tall and provide for you, but left standing still when you must continue the journey.

I seek to let you know I don’t have to be a tree. You can let me in on the dance. I can exist in subtle ways if it means getting more of you when the time is right.

The hope is that a simple message arrives subliminally when the moment comes that I say to you what I have been wanting to say for years now: I can be more, if you want.

Suspended in time,
On the Left

Well, that’s that. You’re off on another adventure. And the next time we see each other, the moment will be upon us.

As in THE moment.

The moment when the truth slips from my tongue and hopefully finds your ears willing to accept it. When I let you glimpse the sun reflecting brightly off of the rushing river that is my love for you.

Just a glimpse, though. I’m afraid if I tried to take you down it, even in the most comfortable craft I can find, it would be too much for you. I can guide you, but you’re the one that has to make the choice to be submerged.

I still wonder if that’s the best way to do it. “I am truly and deeply in love with you” feels like it would be too strong, like throwing you into the river and asking you to swim. “You are the most amazing person I have ever met and I count myself lucky any day I get to be around you or talk to you” seems like it would be fine.

But how would you respond to “just fine”? Maybe I need to be more direct.

I think I feel you push and pull. Lately your communication has been more….communal. Almost like you are reaching for safety, ducking underneath the tent before the clouds above conspire to create the rain that would fall on your very well put together life.

You don’t include me as much as you could, and yet you still include me more than you would if I truly meant nothing to you. Do you even realize? Or is this your way of recalculating, taking a step back to survey the board to make sure you have the pieces in place for both protection and attack?

Regardless, it tears at me on the inside. I’m probably too sensitive to it. This has been such a busy summer for you, and there have been times when it felt like you wanted me right next to you.

So as I sit in this desert between moments, this purgatory in which I can’t tell if I’m falling away from you or just momentarily suspended, I remember what it was like that one day.

They were away, and you were on your own to manage. It’s something that happens frequently but I still can’t tell if it bothers you. And in that moment of unlimited space, where you had to simultaneously endure the challenge and enjoy your break, you reached for me.

You showed me what you saw. You brought me into your thoughts. You bounced things off of me while also making me feel important. I can’t be the only one available for you in times like that. Surely not, knowing you. I have to think there’s a reason you still do.

They returned. Whole again. And again, I moved into the periphery. You still found ways to bring me in, if only for brief moments.

And I still wonder, what is this dance? At times it feels on purpose, the steps and moves calculated like some sort of spiritual lambada. Others, it seems like the natural flow of your mind, as if you are a bird migrating and I’m the nice big tree by the pond you recall exists when the moment feels right. There when needed, proud to stand tall and provide for you, but left standing still when you must continue the journey.

I seek to let you know I don’t have to be a tree. You can let me in on the dance. I can exist in subtle ways if it means getting more of you when the time is right.

The hope is that a simple message arrives subliminally when the moment comes that I say to you what I have been wanting to say for years now: I can be more, if you want.

Suspended in time,
On the Left

This is (very probably) my last letter. Unless things go better than I expect and I just can’t help myself. For one thing, I have said all I need to say here. I can’t put into practice these words without first ending the practice phase.

But mainly, what I’m about to say here is certainly - give or take a few changes - what I will be saying to you when the time is right. These are the words that I will choose to express this feeling I cannot shake. You deserve to hear them as much as I deserve to express them.

Something has changed recently, and I’m not certain what. You are not feeling well, true. But in your quest to discover the root cause, what will you uncover? What if somewhere under the surface, deep down your body is involuntarily responding to a realization? Something that would alter your foundation?

In my mind, the things we have shared with each other; the way you have responded to me, seen me; the way we just work together? People don’t do that unless there’s something there. Acting on it is something entirely different, but you could never convince me that you didn’t feel this, too.

Some might say if you are going to strike, you had better do it with force. They would argue a measured approach, to appear reluctant, is a subconscious sign of weakness. Maybe they’re right. But this, nevertheless, is an ideal jumping off point. This is a foundation for something bigger if you wanted to walk there with me. So, without further ado…..

Here it goes.

With all the joy in my heart, I solemnly swear you are without a doubt the most amazing person I have ever known. I feel so lucky and fortunate every single day in which I get to be with you, interact with you, or just feel your presence in my life. The knowledge that you exist has made my life better in ways you do not see.

I know what this means. So before you offer that rebuttal, let me acknowledge that is only my problem to deal with. I’m not telling you this because I think you can help me solve it or be a refuge for me while I handle it. That’s not for you to do, and I wouldn’t expect that of you.

Rather, I’m simply telling you this as a fact. I am in awe of you in every sense. I could go on and on about it, embarrassing you in the process, so I will only say that you are beautiful beyond words and your natural ability to care about other people is inspiring.

I feel like a better version of myself when I feel your influence. I am me, but more vibrant and colorful. I feel driven by you to reach higher and to do more. There are things I have done or more easily completed simply because I felt motivated by who you are and what you say.

I feel these things for you and I think of you this way because it’s just how I see you. I don’t expect anything to change. But because I think of you so highly, you deserve to know this.

I know where we are. I know what the reality is. And to be honest, yeah I’ve thought about it. I feel like when two people get along this well and gel as well as we seem to, it’s inevitable to think about. But I also know what’s right and what’s appropriate. The absolute last thing I ever want to be for you is unsafe.

I don’t want to bring you disappointment, stress, or the weight of expectation. All I have ever wanted to do is proudly and excitedly say that I think you are just perfect exactly as you are. It’s like I’m this wayward astronaut floating through space and you are a bright, shimmering comet. I feel cosmically lucky that I came across your path.

And now I just don’t want to stop looking.

Eternally your admirer,
On the Left

It was Good Friday. I’m not particularly religious, and I would have no reason to remember that day. Except that it was the only reason I could think of at the time for why you looked the way you did.

That day, I brought my lunch. It was something light, something healthy; full of the things I needed and few of the things I wanted. I walked into the break room and placed it in the fridge. Totally normal, unassuming; the kind of day when something knocks you off your feet for good. Except this time it was a someone.

We had known each other for a few months at that point and you seemed nice enough. Oddly, the shadows of our lives crossed each other. Something was there, maybe a tiny crush on my end, but it was barely a seed at that point. I could bury it easily, instead of now, when I am moving all of this shrubbery and these branches in the way to disguise the full grown, blossoming tree that is my love for you.

This was the moment that seed began to sprout.

The fridge door hid me from the sight of the break room entrance and the hallway. Likewise, if someone did walk in at just the right time, I wouldn’t have been able to see them while I was contemplating my day and sliding a nutritious - albeit often unsatisfying- lunch into its place. Order, calmness, a place for everything. That’s how my life was then.

And then I closed the fridge door. There you were. Right in front of my eyes for what felt like the first time. It was like I pulled back the curtain covering a marvelous tapestry, woven with such care and detail that it would be considered among the most priceless works of art that ever existed. Tens of thousands would go to war, sacrifice so much, just for the chance to possess it, to touch it.

A war that has raged inside of me ever since.

I honestly don’t know what I saw first. It was an explosion of light and color at point blank range, but if I had to choose I would say your eyes. You had done your makeup in such a way that they literally sparkled. I was a lowly miner in the deepest crevasse known on Earth, and there were these two jewels in front of me. They were not sapphires nor any rare jewel we know now, but something entirely new and undiscovered, somehow illuminating the cave. I saw everything in them, all that was and could be.

Yes, your makeup. It was different yet perfect. Your lips, your nose, your eyebrows and lashes; a vivid shade of color that needs its own spectrum to measure. You were truly otherworldly.

Your hair had perfect waves that fell on my soul like it was a beach. Calm, but present. The sound of your waves was the only thing that kept my heart from leaping completely out of my chest. Mother Nature herself could not form such beauty, and it sat atop your precious head like a halo, an auburn angel.

Finally, the centerpiece. The item that keeps coming back to me in times of joy and sorrow, of blinding clarity and disbelief. Your dress.

It hugged you in a shade of blue as if it were literally part of you, as if an artist had drawn it on you to complete his portrait of perfection. Not too long, not too short. It framed you, showed off every part of you while not giving too much away. I don’t think I’ve seen it since. But I remember. God, I remember. It is a memory of joy and torment, everything I want and all that I cannot have.

I gasped, audibly. You laughed and probably thought it was because I was frightened. But I wasn’t scared. I was enamored.

This was the reveal. And as I got to know you, studied you more, this delicate tapestry of a human, the more I appreciated the threads that make you. How I have loved every color, every pattern, every story woven into you; and how I desperately long to be one of those threads. How I want to be woven into your life and become part of this perfect story, one that people would gaze upon for eternity for its beauty and detail.

And so, that’s where we are. If you are here, if you are reading this and you know, I need to tell you that I want to do something but I don’t know what. I don’t know how this story ends; just how it would begin.

It doesn’t have to change now. We can talk about it, take our time. Or, you can tell me that this would never work. Whatever the outcome is, I’m ready to know it. I’m full of everything I just laid out before you, and simultaneously braced for impact.

Yours always,

On the Left

Maybe I’m completely delusional. That’s a distinct possibility. There are probably things I’m imagining, creating in my head because ultimately all my mind, body, and soul wants is you. Every part of me reaches for you, and every time I have to pull me back.

So pardon me if I let my mind wander, because otherwise my fingers might and that could cause problems if I’m not careful. But if I am right about this, then I see your pattern. And I know why you act the way you do.

You’re scared, aren’t you?

I think for the first time in your life, someone (me) has come along and played your game perfectly. I’ve come and matched you, found the right peg for every gap (not like that, but maybe someday like that, too.) You’re playing violin and noticed a pleasant change in the sound, like a surge in the melody that takes it up one level. That’s me, with my viola, playing off of you and hitting every note in a way you didn’t think was possible for someone who sits outside of your natural habitat.

Suddenly you have to stop. It makes you nervous how easy it is for me to play along, and so your strings stop singing. You’re afraid if you hit the next note, and if I find it with you, then you will no longer be able to deny what’s really going on here.

Because in order for your song to go on as it is, you can’t have that. You can’t have me join in, no matter how perfect it sounds. It would have to be a new song, one you are probably not ready to play. You would stumble over the notes and find yourself in an unfamiliar harmony.

If you could admit this to me, and tell me that’s why one minute you’re reaching me in ways you don’t need to, and in the next you shy away; then I could look you in the eyes and tell you how you don’t have to feel afraid. You shouldn’t be scared to be seen by me. I know how to play this song. I can hold out the notes as long as you need, and shift tempo easily. Because I will always know your song, and I am always glad to play it no matter the venue.

Please, just keep playing. Don’t get nervous. I love the strings more than anything in the world. No matter where this song leads, it will have been a privilege to have played it with you.

Yours always,
On the Left

Maybe I’m completely delusional. That’s a distinct possibility. There are probably things I’m imagining, creating in my head because ultimately all my mind, body, and soul wants is you. Every part of me reaches for you, and every time I have to pull me back.

So pardon me if I let my mind wander, because otherwise my fingers might and that could cause problems if I’m not careful. But if I am right about this, then I see your pattern. And I know why you act the way you do.

You’re scared, aren’t you?

I think for the first time in your life, someone (me) has come along and played your game perfectly. I’ve come and matched you, found the right peg for every gap (not like that, but maybe someday like that, too.) You’re playing violin and noticed a pleasant change in the sound, like a surge in the melody that takes it up one level. That’s me, with my viola, playing off of you and hitting every note in a way you didn’t think was possible for someone who sits outside of your natural habitat.

Suddenly you have to stop. It makes you nervous how easy it is for me to play along, and so your strings stop singing. You’re afraid if you hit the next note, and if I find it with you, then you will no longer be able to deny what’s really going on here.

Because in order for your song to go on as it is, you can’t have that. You can’t have me join in, no matter how perfect it sounds. It would have to be a new song, one you are probably not ready to play. You would stumble over the notes and find yourself in an unfamiliar harmony.

If you could admit this to me, and tell me that’s why one minute you’re reaching me in ways you don’t need to, and in the next you shy away; then I could look you in the eyes and tell you how you don’t have to feel afraid. You shouldn’t be scared to be seen by me. I know how to play this song. I can hold out the notes as long as you need, and shift tempo easily. Because I will always know your song, and I am always glad to play it no matter the venue.

Please, just keep playing. Don’t get nervous. I love the strings more than anything in the world. No matter where this song leads, it will have been a privilege to have played it with you.

Yours always,
On the Left

Full disclosure: I am quite drunk, so this should be kept short. Put simply: I fucking want you.

I want all of you, in every way, and at any given time. You could yell at me, curse me to oblivion, and I would STILL count myself fortunate that you acknowledged my presence. I want you, and I know precisely what that means. And do you know what? I don’t care.

I wish it was you who was with me tonight. I want to do these things with you. I want to feel these complex emotions with you alongside me, to feed into what I really need. Yeah, I know. It’s bad. I shouldn’t want this. I should recoil, or you should just shut me off. But you don’t. And I won’t because I can’t.

You are truly the most amazing person I have ever met in my life. And I will never give up on any chance to feel closer to you, even if it’s only by inches.

Don’t come closer. This is my wreckage, and I stagger through it. I’ll take on any burden as long as it protects you from harm. I would do absolutely anything for your happiness.

Forever yours,

On the Left

I want to tell you everything.

You can probably sense something. You’re intuitive. You’re not stupid. Out of practice, maybe. But this has been going on for so long, I can’t imagine you remain totally oblivious.

But the thing is, what you probably see is a single tree. You see all of it, the leaves as they cycle through seasons of plenty and drought, through death and rebirth. You see the roots as they reach out, stabilizing and sustaining. You see the branches as they grow and create new homes for all the woodland creatures, a resource and a refuge.

What you do not see beyond this tree is a vast forest. I cultivated it for you. I made the foliage thick enough to escape into. I planted your favorite flowers and cycled the flora so there’s never a moment when something isn’t in bloom.

It’s all for you, for your comfort. It’s your refuge. But how to tell you: come get lost in the forest with me?

Not lost in a literal sense. Every inch of this place was grown out of a memory of you. All the things I can never forget planted in the ground so that nature can handle the rest. Because this feeling for you, this action toward you, is already oh so natural to me.

I want us to be lost in the sense of not wanting to find our way back. Let this take a life of its own and start to grow in ways we never thought possible.

But sometimes, the woods are scary. No matter how beautiful they look in the light of day, nocturnal rhythms are less certain. They are more fraught with danger. So what happens when this all starts to get too dense?

I don’t know how to ask you to join me in the thicket. I can cut a path as we go, and I know the landmarks. But I can’t guarantee complete safety.

Unless?

Maybe you’re already here. Maybe you’ve cut out a garden in the clearing, cultivated your own space, and are just waiting to be noticed.

If you’re here, leave me breadcrumbs. Gently guide me to your plot by placing clues in the rhythm of the trees. Like an animal of this forest, pure instinct will guide my way to you. And we can explore its wonders together.

Wandering to You,

On the Left