An Open Letter To My Beloved

I can still feel you in my heart. You are still a very real presence in my dreams. I can still taste the salt from your tears on my lips. And yes, I can still smell you, that particular smell that let me know that you were near. I see a picture of you and it is a knife in my heart. A mere mention of your name brings me to attention immediately. The very thought of you with someone else makes me so profoundly sad that I cannot bear it. I would have been with you until the end of time. Yet, it was I who left you. I bet you thought that it was easy for me to leave. You are so wrong. Beloved, it was the hardest thing that I have ever had to do, and there are still some days that I don't think that I can make it. It was the last thing in the world that I wanted.

There are so many reasons why I had to go. I know now that you didn't love me, that you couldn't have, for you did not fight for me. Instead, you just let me go. In the beginning of our time apart, one soft voice mail or e-mail expressing your regret could have brought me running back. A single tear most assuredly would have turned me around. I always hated to see you cry. I know that your pride kept you from it. Does your pride keep you warm? What about the need to be right, does it satisfy you the way I used to? Was your stubbornness worth destroying our relationship? It was not for me. I wish I could say that I regret leaving you, but you gave me no other choice. You left me emotionally long before I left you. There are some lines that you just do not cross and you crossed all of them. Did it make you happy to make me feel worthless? I wish that I could believe that you are not that kind of person, but the evidence suggests otherwise. You may think that I could have stayed and worked it out, but had I stayed, I would have died. My will to live had left me, but you refused to see. Can you see it now?

When I tried to tell you that I wasn't happy, you laughed. Yes, you laughed! You thought that I would never leave you and that you could treat me any way that you wanted. You were so sure of me. Well, you could always be sure of my love, but my survival instinct won out. I wish every day that it had not come to this, but it has. I would give all that I have to change it, but I cannot give you my soul. You would not take good care of it, just as you did not take good care of the heart that I gave you. My old heart is cracked and chipped, and you still have a piece of it, but it is still intact and beating. As long as my heart beats, I will love you. As long as I draw breath, I will think of you. As long as we inhabit the same earth, I will have hope. On this and every other Valentine's Day, you will always be my Valentine.