Dear Lost Lover,

This is a letter to commemorate what could have been. This is a salute to all the times there was great “potential,” but never any “plausibility.” Over and over we meet, in different places, at different times, even as different people. But always, one of these three doesn’t match up.

I live here, you live there. I’m too old, you’re too young. You’re too old, I’m too young. I’m not yet the person I should be to make this work, you have yet to experience what is needed to keep our love strong.

It sucks, this timing thing. The clock that never strikes midnight, the minute hand only ever hovering before the 12, freezing the almost moon in the sky, haunting and taunting us. We are Time's fateful little puppets.

Every time we kiss goodbye, it gets more painful. The sweet ache in my chest turns ever more sour when our lips gently part. Who are you? I wonder, as I stare into your blank eyes. For we must always hold back from each other, no matter how much we want to tear down one another’s walls. We cannot let our souls fully touch. They must never know they are meant to collide into a burst of a thousand suns. That would be catastrophic. It would be impossible to untangle them, slice them apart, make them strangers again. And where would we be then, my love?

The funny thing is, you always come when I need you. Always at times of great desperation, of utter loneliness and despair. Out of nowhere, I turn my head, and there you are once more. You return to remind me that good waits at the end of the bad, every time, without fail.

Our meetings are always brief. A few days, a few months, never more, I fear. But oh! How I come alive. How brightly the flame burns when I find you! The fire glows crimson hot, wrapping around the strings of my dusty old heart, setting the cobwebs aflame, and the embers of my soul ablaze.

And when you must leave, or I must go, the fire we lit doesn’t extinguish. No, for I never feel as cold as I did before you came. I never feel as helpless or sad. I am not lost among millions who yearn to find their version of you. I am reminded that you exist, and that brings me comfort.

My love, I hope to find you one day in a world where we never have to say goodbye.

Until we meet again,

-M.M.