Tea-Stained Letters

Bloody orange tea, sweet with sugar. Slightly sticky lips and fogged-up glasses. Musing on letters to write on tea-stained paper, going something like this:

“Dear,

There is a remnant of me that still loves you. It aches in my chest, it burns at the knowledge that we’ll never meet. You say our souls are of the same soup, but I know you hate soup. You make me feel ridiculous. Every poetic word I write is counteracted by your countenance in my mind’s eye—you make me sigh, and I’m not certain if it’s out of exasperation or love.

Whenever I smoke I imagine the smoke in my lungs is your influence, destroying me. I imagine it coiling around my throat, like a necklace, like hands with ill intentions. While I drink my tea I think of the oversteeped cup you gave me, your inability to follow the instructions on the box.

Could you ever, just once, be straightforward? You flirt with me drunk then regret it in the morning, you call me your best friend then revoke it. I’m afraid to get comfortable with you, for fear I’ll start to overreact when you pull the rug out from underneath me. There are lessons to be learned from this, but they’re taught in a language I don’t understand.

My tea grows cold and I grow weary. I write poems for you that I never send; if I did it would surely spell my end. You are the revenant that haunts me, slipping into my dreams and drowning me in the lake I once slumbered peaceably beneath.

I imagine us on picnics, sitting on the swings at the park. Simple places, doing simple things. The world of wonderings is beautiful, daydreams come like droplets of rain from the heavens. I imagine you as a fickle divinity—have you heard, gods make terrible people? It’s all I can do to excuse your cruelty, excuse loving you.

Is it love, or is it obsession? Is whatever you say on your knees truly worship? On my knees I cry out your name, and you are not there to hear it. You’ll never be there to hear it. You don’t even get to read it, rough thing.

Not yours,
J.”

Musing on letters never to be sent, written in a notebook full of the same thing spelt in different ways, different moods. Such familiarity, in the way you hold the pen, the light brush-stroke lines arcing between each character.

Cold tea, slightly sour. The cup is nearly empty now, silver spoon poking out like a shovel out of dirt. Outside, it grows slowly dimmer. The window is open, letting cool air and the scent of new growth in. Perhaps it’s time for some growth of your own. Or perhaps it’s time to ruminate further.

You steep in your secrets like leaves in hot water. Waiting for just the right moment to free yourself—but there are no instructions, so you stay, and the water grows bitter from your aches and pains, your endless repeated refrains.

“Yearning is better than love,” and you won’t change your mind. You’ve never felt it, not really, but you don’t allow yourself to. You smoke your cigarettes and lick the ashes from the tray, grainy grey in your gullet. You think of what you would write if you had a real lover, someone substantial.

Something like this:

“My Love,

You call to me, and I answer. We go tenderly into the night and never fear one another. Your hands are gentle on my skin, reaching into a part of me I hardly knew existed. Your hands, your beautiful, aching hands! You must grow tired of wielding such beautiful appendages. I paint your nails and you paint mine, yours are golden, sunshine, and mine are black as the night sky.

Lovely thing, you are the sun in the sky. You are the stars I adore, and the moon I dedicate each poem to. Time will wear at you, but it will never take your beauty. Even covered in unsightly wrinkles and moles, I would adore you.

It matters not what you look like, only who you are—and to me you are everything, whole galaxies are contained in your inquisitive eyes. With you I feel as the keeper of the universe, blessed and whole and holy. You are all the good parts of divinity, and I worship you as the Persephone to my Hades.

Your perfect smile enraptures me, I could live in the shine of your teeth. You could chew me like gum, and I would never mind it—but I know you aren’t half so cruel, a far gentler beast than me. In your hands you hold my heart, and you cradle it like delicate porcelain; a teacup you could easily shatter.

Without you I would be bereft, heavy in a way I have not been since your arrival. In your arms I feel weightless, all the sins I carry with me left at your doorstep. You have torn my soul asunder and made a place in it, deifying me with your compassion, your careful affections.

You are sensitive to my pains, allowing me the time I need to heal. You do not try to wrap me in bandages, but give me the materials I need to do it myself, offering soft reassurances and guidance without any pressure at all. Accepting my eccentricities as part of me, you do not attempt to flatten any part of me.

You love me, splinters and all, and so, too, do I love you.

Devotedly,
J.” 

You wipe tears from your eyes, pained by the world you created for yourself. It is a world you can never have. You are the cruel thing, sharpened spines preventing anyone from getting too close. Each bitter moment is part of you, the burden carried on your shoulders.

Watching the darkness outside your window, you wonder if it matches the darkness inside. Your soul is a dim light, empty without imagined lovers, restless with the setting of the sun, frenzied from the letters you write to yourself.

You spill the last drops of your tea on the pages, and you aren’t sorry. 

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