To
My childhood bestie,
Today, on your birthday, I wanted to write you the most beautiful letter about our happiest memories. But then, I got reminded of how happiness hurts you these days. It’s gotten so far away, hasn’t it?
My friend, you’re strong even when you cry. You cry these days, look at me with puffed eyes, your face a mess and mood a black hole of emptiness. She has ruined you, hasn’t she?
And yet, I see how you try to hang on to sanity. Your claw marks across the floor as she drags you from your room to hers, from your life to hers. She traps you like a spider weaves her web around the fly and you wait, like Jesus, for her to crucify you. I wonder if you would ever realise that there is no nobility in suffering. We are not God, my friend. We are just humans – we die when we don’t get enough love.
She hits you with words. Voices of contempt and disgust. Noises of disapproval and screaming. I don’t understand why you still keep on building a broken home. But I see you mixing the cement using your blood, I see you lining up the bricks, waiting for them to set – again and again while she comes over with her sweet pink car and runs it over your hard work. How many walls have gone down by now? I don’t think you realise there are none left. All the mess is visible to all your friends, and we only want you to get out. I wonder if you see me standing outside the fallen walls, waiting for you to hold on to my stretched-out arm.
I remember how she tried to monopolise your days and nights. You started drowning your misery in alcohol and food. You did something you swore you would never do. 2AM in the night, you ask me for permission to cry and then sob and weep through the muck. 5AM in the morning, you call me to confess, “I wanna die.”
How do I save you? How do I tell you in a different way than my words, “Just try leaving her once, you won’t find yourself lonely for a second. I’m here, I’m here standing behind you in all your decisions. Just make one!” I wonder if you do not see your strength. If you did, you’d have chosen yourself long ago.
I watch her mouth burning more than just the edges of your heart. I see you squirming in pain, begging her to stop, to be kinder, gentler, like before. How do I tell you that abusers don’t change? How do I tell you that she won’t leave you when you bow to her like she’s your temple of faith? I respect you, my friend, for this ability of having faith in someone so godless, someone so inhumane. I revere in your ability to trust in the one who hurts you by piercing you with needles of taunts and insults in every conversation. I cannot imagine the determination it must take to pick yourself up every time and tell yourself, “I am stronger than this pain. I shall stay – for the sake of this love.” I wonder, my friend, if you realise the limitedness of how much love can achieve.
She steps on the fun out of everything you enjoy. She does it to see your reaction, to make sure she is the only one you hold dear – and that you never find another soul to share your heart with, another outlet to express your frustrations to. I saw your tears on your instrument, buddy. Your pillow has not been dry for the past one year. Is she so worth it? I can’t see how, but maybe that’s because I cannot love like you do, my friend.
How does one get the ability to love like you do? You tell me in precise detail how she makes you swallow her daggers one by one so you cannot sing anymore. You tell me that and in the same breath confess, “But isn’t love supposed to be tough? Isn’t it supposed to be difficult? Can’t I just somehow make it work?” I am sorry I didn’t tell you how your tunes weren’t in place last night. Others might not be able to tell but we learnt music together, buddy. How could I not hear the tremors in your rhythm?
You shiver at her call, you tremble at her name. And then you go back to her because “What if another relationship fails? Am I so unlovable to have repeated failure in relationships?” My mother says you have the thinking of 1950s. I don’t think she realises the depth of your courage just yet. But my friend, do you realise the lack of love from her side? Do you realise that it is not your fault if you came to love a blunt knife who only knows how to cut your heart out when you hug it?
My friend, why are you so strong? How can you love so fearlessly that you are willing to die before letting a heartless person go, before your heart is shattered in pieces – unbeating and cold? I have a lot of respect for you but I’m scared I’m not as strong as you are. I’m scared I will lose my only childhood friend to a person so selfish, she cannot see your blood spilt on her altar. All she sees is the one droplet on her pretty pink dress and she screams at you again. My friend, I am scared she won’t realise when the person she’s screaming at is dead. She won’t even smell your rotting stench as I would wail in your absence. Your friends would mourn, your parents would never breathe properly and the world will not the same again for anyone – except her.
Please leave her, bestie. I can’t see you suffering anymore. I’m so scared you’re just gonna end up a dead body at my door because I wasn’t able to pick your last call. Fuck, I’m selfish and I need you in my life. Please choose yourself over others for once. Please live.
From,
Your childhood bestie.
Aru Shan 