A letter that was never sent

Letters in envelopes

I never thought you would change...

But I was wrong.

Last September's meeting with you will always remain etched in my memory forever, yes, forever. A memory that will search me down wherever I go, no matter how far I escape. It will always be there, right there in my cerebral cortex—a blot that will ever refuse to fade, a scar that will ever remain unhealed. You made sure that it does. And I made sure that it becomes exactly what you wanted it to be, and it remains so ---- a deep black hole in the galaxy of my shadow, in the whispers of my songs.

When you blurted out those words, when you made use of every trick to convince me with intermittent gaps and pauses, I felt disoriented, a blankness seeped inside of me, which refused to free itself long after you were gone. That chair, where I sat opposite you, seemed to have engulfed me in its shards of wood and fevicol. I couldn't move; I forgot for a moment how to move from that space, which I thought I owned. And suddenly your words, like open spikes of a shield, made me realize that place was never mine, that chair was replaceable.

And your touch, yes, when you touched my fingers to caress them, toying with my bangles while you talked, I felt like running away. Yet, I couldn't. That touch had changed, that mineness was no more there. Suddenly, you felt like a stranger to me, a person I thought I knew, a touch that was always so familiar and warm for me.

Those words which you used, reused, and then misused in telling me that you would leave, leave for better dreams, a better place, and that I shouldn't wait and expect, were no more mere words. Those were realities which I refused to believe, refused to gulp down my system, which was so used to being with you, and only you.

Now, a year has passed...and one more year will pass and more...but your words, my dear, will remain there forever, yes, in that recess of my memory which will erode but not erase...

However, I will never send this letter to you... You don't deserve to read this, Ever.

{She kept the letter inside the envelope, adding to the ones waiting there to be read}

**An imaginary piece that reveals how realities hit each one of us differently and how writing them out helps to deal with them. Every word, every letter is not meant to be sent...

By Nandini Sengupta

@metaphors_of_life