It has been six years since we met. The girl who introduced us hardly occupies a space in my memory. I cannot say the same of you, though my feelings for you have warped and changed over the years.

I want there to be some record of what existed between us, my goose, and some forum for me to express the feelings that are left over. I tried to create those things legitimately, but you returned my letter. Now, I resort to this, which is funny, considering that the internet is one of those things you'd ignore. You'd call it fake, impersonal.

I don't feel very fake or impersonal right now. When I met you, I didn't realize that you were, in many ways, even more terrified and alone in the world than I was. I thought you had it all together--all your beliefs and ideas--you seemed so fully formed. I had never met anyone that had already taken a moral stand on the word 'I,' eating meat, the prom, Christmas... You seemed...revolutionary. I felt behind and thoughtless. I craved your 'intellectual' lifestyle. I forced myself to analyze, to criticize, to deconstruct my life, my thoughts, my feelings. What I realize now was that you took on the characteristics of an intellectual. You borrowed those moral stances. You reacted to a teenage culture that excluded you. I don't blame you for that; I merely laugh at myself for believing in it.

I think that I can objectively and honestly say that I have never loved, and will never love, anyone the way that I loved you. I think that I loved you from some inner core of me that has since become protected and probably rightly so, though I don't want to apologize anymore for allowing you to see the real emotions that resulted from our breakup. I don't care if they were inappropriate, unsightly, gross, and raw. I don't care if they made you uncomfortable. I never held anything back when I was allowed to love you, so I don't see why I should have spared you the agony of being disallowed.

I want to remember the way we kissed on the beach in March, the cold wind tearing at our skin and that single porch light out on the horizon. I want to remember that you planned so carefully to tell me that you loved me for the first time in the newspaper...got it published, and then couldn't wait and told me on a mountaintop in November. I want to remember that your name was Goose and that you understood me better than anyone ever has or will.

But what I remember instead is that you doubted me, though I never lied to you; that you left me over and over again; that you cheated on me. I remember how you always put yourself first--and how I always put you first. I remember best the night that we split for the last time. It was like relief, but more painful.

I can't believe that you wrote me last year, right before I got married. I believe, sincerely, that you did it to stop me. I know that you did it to stop me. But it didn't stop me. And when I wrote back, after my wedding, you sent my letter back to me. Your last-ditch effort to ruin my life didn't work, so there was no reason to keep any contact with me.
I met you six years ago.
We split up less than a year later.
I got married last year.
Now, I am finally going to give you up.

Because you couldn't bring yourself to read my letter, I will always remember the wrong things. I will remember sitting on the asphalt while you told me that you kissed someone else. I will remember being curled under a table, weeping because you thought I had betrayed you. I will remember dying on my kitchen floor while you left me. I will remember that the last thing you did to me was try to wreck something beautiful by calling me back to something sordid.

Screw You,

Meg