# Unsent The letter lay on my desk for three days before I realized I couldn't send it. Not because the words were wrong—they weren't. Each sentence had been measured, revised, reconsidered in the small hours when the city outside my window turned into something else entirely: quieter, more honest, less forgiving of pretense. I had written about things I'd never said aloud, things that lived in the margins of conversations, in the spaces between phone calls that came less and less frequently. But somewhere between finishing that last sentence and reaching for an envelope, I understood that sending it would be a betrayal of a different kind. My mother would read it in the kitchen, probably over morning tea, the light from the window catching the edges of the paper. She would read it the way she reads everything—looking for what's been left out, for the real meaning underneath the words. Because that's what mothers do, isn't it? They've spent decades learning the dialect of your silences. And she would be hurt. Not by what I'd written, but by the fact that I'd had to write it at all. If I'd been able to say these things across a table, with her hands visible and mine visible, with the possibility of either of us reaching across and changing the conversation entirely—that would have been different. That would have been real. But a letter is a coward's argument. It arrives when you're not there to soften it, to laugh it away, to take it back before it lands too hard. I thought about the letters in my own drawer—the ones I'd kept from my father, written in his careful hand from hospital beds and hotel rooms. I'd kept them because they said things his voice never quite managed. But I wouldn't have wanted him to *only* say those things through paper. I would have wanted him to say them to me, even stumbling, even badly. So I did what people do with letters they can't send. I read it one more time. Every word still true. Still necessary, maybe, but not in the way I'd imagined. The necessity wasn't in the sending—it was in the writing itself. In admitting, at least to the page, that there were things between us that had gone unsaid. In understanding, finally, that some conversations aren't meant to be finished. Some gaps aren't meant to be closed. I folded the letter carefully and put it back in the drawer. On Sunday, I called my mother instead. We talked about nothing much: the weather, a recipe she'd tried, a neighbor's dog. Her voice came through the phone the way it always does—patient, listening, waiting for me to say the thing I really wanted to say. I didn't say it. But this time, I wasn't sure that mattered.

One. I know you deeply—which words will unsettle you, I know that too. I pay close attention to your worries. No one else has ever touched me the way you do, and your friendship with every scar on my body is the only reason for my weakness.

Two. Transparency?
Seeing things exactly as they are.

Three. Even if you don't love me, I can tell you truly love my feelings. I think of you just as much as you drown in me—and you do, far longer. That's an even more terrible addiction.

It takes time to read too. Because I know this...you don't read all of it, don't listen to every song. That's why I find the courage to write to you. I know, you love me…a little…no no, quite a lot.

Four. And if you won't keep me, then somewhere else,
In some other tune I'll come to you.

I'm here, you madness! It takes so much courage to fade away, I don't have that much. To live, really, you just need a little faith in yourself. But if I could muster the courage to tell you—there's no one else in this world I need to tell.

I'm searching for you so desperately in my mind…
Will you sit still once, just once?

Six. This phone was never really my favourite, but now I can't bear to sell it. I've nearly memorized all your texts, and whenever I remember some old thing you said—I search for it, any word you ever wrote.

Just thinking of you makes my eyes well up! Look, is there any point saying all this? Whenever I want to have you near—I write so many things thinking of you, and I never wanted to say those either.

Every time I write something about you, you say—it's so beautiful. But you never understood—I only learned to write to keep our connection alive.

Seven. From the moment I understood…that I love you—your image has been painted inside my mind, and that blurry picture grows clearer before my eyes every moment—I touch you so deeply. In my imagination, you're unbearably beautiful!

Eight. If I can't write for a while during the day, I become deeply restless. If I can't feel you, I fall terribly ill. I can't calm my heart for anything.

Nine. If I could see you, my heart would settle. If I could hold you to my chest and embrace you, my tears would stop, completely. I keep thinking, how can I have you just a little closer?

Why am I so helpless? I find myself unbearable.

Ten. I was so restless! If I try to forget you, I'm torn to shreds inside…forgetting you means staying away from writing, far away.

I can't write anything without giving you shelter in the wound of my chest. I'm not someone people want to remember; why would you keep me in a corner of your heart? Why am I wanting you so much? Believe me, I haven't forgotten you for even a moment.

Eleven. I could spend this one life waiting for you, and that would be good…and still, I can't let anyone else into my heart. How could anyone else touch me? It won't be possible.

The way you gave me shelter in your chest…in that time I was so at peace. I don't think I need anyone else in this life.

Your body's scent feels so familiar to me. Even if it happens that I never get to talk to you again—I won't let go of feeling you.

I love you so much…so much! So much that—I don't know what I should do.

I don’t know where to stop.

Twelve. Let me come close to you for a moment…I know, I can’t be with you, I’m terribly tiresome. Still, bear with me this once, make the effort. I won’t ask again. I promise.

Thirteen. What are you doing? Have you fallen asleep? Why are you so busy today? Sometimes I think, you’re lying so near me, so close that nearness itself becomes a kind of love I can’t refuse. If only you knew—how terribly, impossibly happy I am loving you, you wouldn’t want to hurt me.

Do you know why I want to run away?

Fourteen. You’ll never truly love me…

Let this go on a little longer—it’s already more than I can bear. If you ever truly loved me, if that happiness actually came to pass, I couldn’t endure its vastness. Everything would simply stop.

Fifteen. The path I lost my way seeking…
I traveled some distance before I learned—
that path was never meant for me.

Through an enchanted conflict, searching for existence itself…
The first defeat of the thirsty.

Sixteen. Don’t be shaken by crisis—
I am with you.

Who are you, then?
What is the source of this power?
Is it merely my own delusion?

Behind it all lies your silence,
where the ego surrenders itself.

In secret worship, consciousness expands,
and the analysis of one’s true self becomes necessity.