Dear L____,
I’m back home after our breakup dinner. Do you feel as little as I do? It’s remarkable. Baffling. Aren’t we supposed to be heartbroken? Shattered? Another reach for love/understanding smashed upon the shores of reality. I should feel like a failure but all I feel is relief.
Maybe if we lived in the same city the thing between us would’ve ended in a week or two rather than a full season. It’s easier to overlook someone’s lacks when you only share the same room an hour or two at a stretch. The days and weeks between meetings a heart is free to fantasize and embroider and exaggerate. It can make a face you don’t notice on a passerby into a vision of beauty.
Had we slept in the same bed more than three or four times, your laying there like a dead fish tolerating whatever was happening above it, waiting for it to be over, would have become an issue. You might’ve stopped taking my snoring as an adorable habit and recognized it as an intolerable condition that caused you insomnia.
Lucky for us both we pulled the plug while holding hands. Still, a few things eat at me in retrospect. Why did I let you call Mexicans ‘mud people’ and not say anything? Why did I pretend to like your shitty songs? Was your letting me fuck you a get-out-of-jail-free card? Did it blind me to all your obvious flaws? You must have a long list of grievances as well or was this just a novel way to spend a fall until a mate who could support you in the luxury to which you’d always been accustomed could come along? Slumming it bohemia never fit you too well.
Thanks for sharing pictures of your children but I didn’t ask to see them. The idea that your genetic line will continue is not the happy thought you take it to be.
Why did you write anyway? Has your marriage hit a dull spot? Do you really recall our time together fondly?
It made me recognize my own shallowness that I went with you for as long as I did. You’re so fucking beautiful. I was flattered you’d give me the time of day. Why did you ever have to open your mouth? It would’ve been perfect if we’d never exchanged a word.
Okay, I’m kidding. It could never have worked. I’m sure your husband finds you clever though he sounds like a real idiot. I’m not bitter. I don’t envy him. I’m glad the two of you found one another. I’m also glad we’re thousands of miles apart so you’re never tempted to invite me over.
But thanks for writing.
p.s. More via audio.