Dear,

Writing to you is both pain and pleasure, because

When I write to you, I am my best self, my brightest, most caring and loving, truest

The words that I spill onto these blank pages are waves of yearning that I can never

Enunciate, pronounce, share in a voice louder than a breath

When I write to you, I am my best self, because on these pages, dear, I do not know

How to hide my feelings behind pauses and breath, the black and white of this terrain leaves

Me no place to hide my rawest, reddest, largest thoughts that I have of you, for you, our love,

Dear,

When I write to you, I am my best self, because the written word is my first language, my mother

Tongue, and so I tell you everything, I open myself up in ways that even your

Touch, cannot unravel, dear, oh, my dear,

When I write to you there is so much pleasure, and yet, so much pain

Because Dear, the love that I tattoo so diligently into this space,

You will never read,

Because dear, your eyes are blind to the written word, and this love slips through

The whiteness of this space to rest at the bottom of my heart, deeply buried,

buried for the rest of this time, this love, this us, and so

This, this is why writing to you is both pain, and pleasure.

…

Arathi Devandran curates personal experiences, snapshots of the world and the stories people are willing to share with her through prose and poetry www.miffalicious.com