The Break-Up Letter

Dean Traylor is a freelance writer and teacher who writes about various subjects, including education and creative writing.

I.

Sometimes, in the darkest of nights

I remember that letter

found on my bed.

It came from her,

tossed there,

without the faintest of care.

I picked it up,

read it,

and let it fall

from my shaking hand.

Despair

took over.

My hope, my dream, my sweet one…

was no more.

Something went wrong

and

something stayed wrong.

Baffled and hurt

a realization set in:

I longed for a girl

who had only the courage

to write a letter...

and vanish.

The days and nights that followed

didn’t hide the wounds.

Loneliness made me yearn

and rubbed the stinging salt

to heighten the pain.

II.

Sometimes, on certain nights,

I think it was all a dream.

Me and her?

Together for eternity?

Once, it affirmed my belief

and kept the truth

at bay.

But that letter always pulls me back

to reality.

Eternity, no more.

She came to reject me,

impersonally,

through the written words

rather than the spoken ones.

III.

Other nights, I think about that letter.

And anger takes over.

I gave her my heart

and she tossed it away.

Bitter taste lingers

on the tips of my lips.

as I wonder why she did it

this way

through letter... not words.

IV.

Sometimes, on those dark and lonely nights

revelation becomes a light.

If that letter,

that damn letter,

never arrived,

would I have seen

the real girl

I thought I adored?

Or would I be still be in the dark

as a blind man not seeing the beast

hiding in a meek physique?

Eventually, realization shined a light

on that letter,

(and on that woman):

it robbed me of a fantasy

and brought me back

to reality.

And that turned out

to be a good thing, indeed.

Thus, those dark nights are not so lonely

anymore.

I have a break-up letter to thank

from a girl

that was all wrong

for me.

And I will never adore

anymore.

© 2021 Dean Traylor