Not a Love Letter
82
Hello, you,
There is so much I want to tell you but I shouldn't because this isn't a love letter. There is so much I need you to know, bleed for you to know, but I shouldn't have you knowing, because this isn't a love letter. There is so much that would need to be avoided, skirted around, because this is not a love letter.
This isn't a love letter because you don't love me, and I'm a coward to leave a painful record of unrequited love, so I should sidestep all the things that scream I love you, and should instead murmur the things I feel I can utter to pacify my raging heart.
My raging heart won't be pacified, however, by anything less than you, all of you, so this is not a love letter because you don't love me, but I'm still writing it because I do, so much so that I can't help it, even though I know I'll overwhelm you, burden you, alienate you with my unconcealed passion.
I'll shed the outer skin, I'll shed all pretense, and all the tears I never cried for you, and I'll write you not about love, but about goodbye, because after reading this letter you won't want to know more, won't want to be near me, you'll be scared away by a me that you never met and won't recognize, a me that is a genius out of a bottle you never meant to open.
Maybe you're already half afraid, you no longer recognize me, you're already withdrawing from this strange and unfamiliar me, who loves you and never told you, and maybe you're also a bit shocked that my passion, my feelings, enveloped you without you noticing, never suspecting, never looking into me long enough to read me, like you're now reading my goodbye.
That's why I never told you, because you never had a look in your eyes, a tilt of your head, a quietness to your body that ever told me you would listen, you were never ready for me to tell you, and so I kept it from you, because you just don't love me. But you will read this letter and you will know, even though I shouldn't tell you, even though I shouldn't love you, even though the things I need to tell you are my own and you don't need to know, you will finally know and be burdened, while I'm saying goodbye.
Goodbye, my lovely. I can't hold back any longer, struggling not to fall over the brink of the maddening turmoil, the furious storm that rages inside me. When I'm near you I fight to remain calm and controlled in a sea of unraveling feeling that I can no longer safely navigate, and it's tearing me apart, the sight of you breaks me, because you don't suffer, you don't know, you don't love me.
Goodbye, sweetheart. I ache to hold you, touch you, caress your face, your shiny hair, so much so that I have to cross my arms over my chest, sit in my hands when you're near, anything that will keep me from reaching out to a soul that is not mine. I dream about kissing you while you obliviously chatter on, and I watch your lips move and can almost feel them on mine, and I'm left so wanting when you place a kiss on my cheek to leave that I just can stand it any longer, and I'm the one who needs to leave, unkissed by your lips, unseen by your heart.
Goodbye, darling. I'm pained, depleted, exhausted, haunted by this unreturned love, by the thought of you with another, by the certainty that you can't be mine. I can't write you a love letter, I just need to write you goodbye. This can't be a love letter, because you don't love me.
Goodbye, my love.
The saga
The answer to this letter: A Love Letter
And the respose to A Love Letter: A Hopeless Love Letter
More letters of Love: Love Letters. 100 words to tell you that I love you.
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Very moving, and very evocative--anyone who has ever felt unrequited love will immediately recognize all the symptoms and all the loss of control involved in this kind of passion. Great repetition "this is not a love letter"; it becomes a reminder, a refrain, and a mantra of longing. Very powerful writing, Elena.
That's a letter - a letter to change the heart of the reader. Special :)
GT – It's healthy to let out pain, if you leave it out to air can't decay and infect the soul.
Teresa – I think you're right, anyone who's felt unrequited love will recognize this type of pain and loss. More than the writing, I think it's the feeling itself that's very powerful. They say love is the most powerful feeling, but I wonder about that...unrequited love is terribly, mind blowingly powerful.
Paraglider – If it turned the heart of the reader out of realization, then that would be wonderful :-)
Elena- I hope the intended "target" did get to read the letter. It is such a wonderful heartfelt letter. Besos :-)
Hello, countrywomen! Long time no see! I'll never tell about the "target", or the effect or anything! My lips are sealed! :-) Besos to you!
Wow, Elena! Very moving - poignant stuff this. Wasted on an article. It should be part of a novel.
Hi Anthony! A novel with a happy ending, I would hope, or it'd be a very sad one indeed :-) Feel free to borrow it for your next manuscript, as it's highly unlikely I'll ever write a novel myself :-)
Elena- Muchas Gracias for your Besos. Long see no time (I mean I long to see you but no time)..hehe. Sure, do keep your secrets close to your heart but hopefully to the intended "target" you do convey your message. As they say "'It is better to have loved and lost. Than never to have loved at all" :-)
Well, I have my reservations about that saying, CW, but because it's you posting it, I will just say this: Loving and not being corresponded is a pain in the neck that I hope to avoid for the rest of my life! :-)
Now Elena...you could have just told me! But seriously folks...gosh, I wish I could read Spanish because if you can write like this in English, in your native tongue must be very powerful indeed! Intense and throbbing, pulsating, your writing lives and breathes the human condition.
Everyone has felt this way, but so few can express it as you have done here. To you, my dear.
Abrazos
Elena, there is no writer like an impassioned woman. That was... all to familiar.
Elena, this is so beautifully written. So flowing, so whole. I am having this kind of a day in a way and I can't help but cry, but at the same time not fully because I don't feel alone in it. What a wonderful piece. How the moments creep on eachother and the feelings drip and leak. And what a perfect photo. Strong and self contained, trying not to spin, and spinning reguardless, and so ready to explode, or implode, at further existance. (Does this make sence?) I know you've used it before, but still. Well worth my weeks wait to read.
Ay Chris, I didn't tell you because you just DON'T love me!
Seriously, though, I think unrequited love is equally powerful in any language, even when one's uncapable to express it in words, it is throbbing and pulsating all the same. Thanks for breathing it in. Besos.
Patricia, I'm not surprised it sounds familiar, who ever escaped this feeling, I wonder. I hope it was a long time ago for you, and it is no more.
Frieda, I really don't want to make a habit of making you cry, but I can see how this would push one there, still I like it that you don't feel alone in the feeling. Yes, feelings leak all over the place. I think one has got to have been there to understand that moment in time when there is nothing else but feeling, and a painful feeling at that. It IS a kind of implosion that eventually explodes into mind blowing emptiness, and one takes it from there.
Elena- I am very sorry if my quote has hurt you in anyway. Well based on my brother's confession that he liked a girl who was coming to our house to learn classical dance from me but he never came around to telling her that he liked her at that time and even to this day he remembers her. I feel maybe if I understood how deeply he felt for her instead of considering it as crush then I may have helped him. If the other person doesn't know about "silent" love then surely there is very little chance and similarly I remembered that quote and wrote it. I am once again sorry and if I have caused you any pain then please forgive me.
Oh, no, countrywomen, I took it well in stride! Don't apologize because there is nothing to apologize for!! I just don't think the quote is that brilliant, because it underestimates the power of losing one's love, and the blinding pain it can cause, but that's all! Big sloppy BESOS, and don't be worried, you didn't cause pain!!
Una carta lindisima! I have been on both ends, where I was deeply in love with a man and he didn't feel the same way, and where a man was deeply in love with me, but I didn't feel the same way- this was a long time ago. I wrote a goodby poem to my first love. Sigh, thanks for bringing up the memories and glad I am not in that place anymore.
Isn't CW sweet? hehe. I agree with her statement because everything in life serves, even not being loved in return because we grow from it, well at least we oughta. :)
Hi VioletSun! De nada, my pleasure! Like I said, I'll have to watch myself 'cause a few of you know the language of Cervantes! :-) So you've been in both ends, as I have, as I suppose anyone around our age has, yeah? Tell me, what would you avoid now? The receiving on the giving scenario? No, on second thought, don't tell me! :-)
CW is THE sweetheart, and I've missed her, and I think that saying has a lovely ring to it when you still haven't lost a love :-) You're right, I guess, as is the saying, philosophically speaking. But deep down I think one never LEARNS to bear with that kind of loss.
Ahhh an ode to unrequited love. I have written many a poem about it and yet I am not friends with it still - the pain is always new and like no other. It's a raging fire in all its silence. A love lost is in a happier place than a love not born.
Thanks for sharing :D
Si, I speak Spanish fluently. I am South American, and my Dad's grandparents were from Spain. :) Have family in Spain that I have never met. I agree one never really learns to deal with loss, if I were to lose my current mate, I would cry as he is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I hear he would feel the same way!
VioletSun! I have I uncovered another closeted Spanish speaking person! We are in the closet because HP makes us!!! Laugh!
On a serious note, I just don't want to entertain the notion of losing my partner, I can't just think straight around that idea!
Cris, you are a SUCH a poet : -) You're so right that unrequited love is "a raging fire in all its silence".
"A love lost is in a happier place than a love not born.", We've just been discussing that with VioletSun, I don't know, I think if you love the way I do, profoundly, losing that kind of love is just as hurtful. I hope I don't ever need to compare!!
I think the pain from a lost love is bittersweet for there are the memories and the bliss of being loved, and it's even hopeful - that probably in the next life... while the pain from an unrequited love offers no respite and consolation :D
I remember being in love with a married man. I could never say how I felt. Once talking with him he said if he ever had an affair it would be with me...imagine how I felt...but I laughed and said that wasn't possible. He never knew and now I'm in a different place...I sometimes wish I could send him a letter like this!!! Thanks for writing what I couldn't say!
Yeah Cris, you're most definitely right about getting no respite from unrequited love. I feel the burden as we speak. Oh, let's not get into that!
K@ari, you're welcome, and nice to meet you! Once you know you really, surely and certainly can't have who you want to have, it's easier to say what you're keeping within. I think one keeps it within in hopes reality will change its course... but when it's obvious it won't, then you can say what you kept to yourself. You can send him a letter like this, I'm sure :-)
Hi Elena,
I guess we've all been there, and felt that quiet ache that steals your appetite, and leaves you yearning for the merest acknowledgement. It's just too painful. A beautiful piece of writing, as always!
Thank you, Amanda. You describe unrequited love well, it is that painful. As I said in a previous comment, I hope for you it's just a vague memory.
OMG Elena-- this is so beautiful and powerful and REAL it takes my breath away. You write with such amazing honesty and passion that it hurts. I think perhaps part of it is because your native tongue is the language of Cervantes-- you have an advantage over us cold anglo saxon types:-) Whatever the reason, this reached deeply into my heart. Yes we have all been there one way or another, and for me those pains are very old and long gone, but you brought them back and in doing so made me know that I am alive. Thank you for such a wonderful gift:-)
And thank YOU, robie, for such a heartfelt comment. If this letter hurts, then I think I conveyed what I wanted, and needed, to convey.
Oh -- and you're so NOT cold! Quite the opposite, really!
There are times when we can no longer be the master of our emotions. When they refuse to be denied and their object is unattainable, we must find another way to release the pain. This is the source of most great art whether poetry, music, painting, sculpture or writing.
Powerful words Elena.
You're so right CWB! They say if it weren't for unrequited love, half the masterpieces on earth wouldn't have been created! I don't know, I think that's a tad exaggerated, but still, it's true that the mind blowing force of unrequited love pushes us beyond ourselves to places where we can create impacting messages, in any form.
This is absolutley beautiful!!! Haven't we all at one point or another felt this way for someone. Either we couldn't ( or shouldn't ) love another or else we love someone that will never feel that way for us. I have been there!
Fantastic Hub!
Not sure what it is (if not a letter... a love ode? A love postcard? A love requiem?) but I like it.
Also, thanks for the tip the other day.
Thanks, jjrubio! Yes, most of us have been there, or will be at some point, sometimes more than once! I'm glad it's over for you, unrequited love is the most painful feeling, isn't it?
Freeze -- It's all of these things, as letters tend to be :-) I love writing them because one can say just about anything in a letter, make it an ode, a requiem, the story of one's life... I'm glad you like it! Don't mention the tip, that was my pleasure!
Oh yeah that was over and done at the age of 12...but I remember it. It is a painful feeling....Funny now because the guy I was so sprung on as a kid isn't so hot now that we are all adults and I am glad he didn't feel the same mutually. I am so OVER IT!! lol =)
jj that made me laugh -- I think THAT also happens to some of us if not all, being hung up and suffering on account of someone we think walks on water only to later think they are the dumbest boy or girl to ever exist :-)
AMEN TO THAT!!!
good hub
strong and beautiful writing Elena - I came to this via your latest letter - unrequited love is so harsh and robs us at the time of sensiblity, perspective, and joy in living...been there too unfortunately....
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt... I guess we can't escape this pain at least once in a lifetime, right ajcor? Rips my heart out to think about it, but it's a fact of life. Thank you for "feeling it" :-*
Como esta senorita Elena,
I hope it was not one sided love or may be he was thinking........
~ Should I smile, Cuz ur my friend, Or cry. Cuz that's all we'll ever be. ~
Well there is really not many happy ever after endings. Life goes on you never stop loving because you never know, when & where you find the love of your dreams. When you find one......
~ No guy is worth your tears & when you find one that is, he won't make you cry. ~
~ Sometimes I wish I was a little kid again.... skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts! ~
Please visit my hub to learn more.....
http://hubpages.com/hub/Just-For-Giggles
Hasta luego
Hola Mr Nice! Skinned knees are definitely easier to fix than broken hearts, you've got that SO right!! :-) If you want to know how this story continues, click on the next hub, A Love Letter :-)
Hola Elena,
I understand now & left another comment on your other hub. Hasta luego
K, now i have read them both. I love them both, really.
Hi Amy G! Maybe now you understand the debate in the comments (and the poll in the other hub) about what the writer of THIS letter should do now that they have received "A Love Letter" :-) Anywhow, I'm very glad you like them both!
Wow Elena, this is beautiful, and sad all rolled into one.
Thanks, gwedymom! Unrequited love has a way to sound romantic and sad at the same time, eh?
Just beautiful I can relate to the emotions you have shared here. Yes brings back some memories for me.
Hi blondepoet! Thanks for saying it's beautiful! This series of letters seem to have brought up memories for a number of people... we all have one love or unrequited love story or another in our background.
Elena, this was a very strong letter, it was so grabbing and moving. I like to release my feelings by writings songs and I'm sure writing this helped you as well. Btw, I actually googled the sun image last night and it was before I ran across your stuff so it didn't subliminally pop into my mind : ) Thank you for sharing such close feelings and emotions with us!
Hello, roasted! Thanks for your kind comment. Is it a fun coincidence about the photo or what? :-)
"Goodbye, darling. I'm pained, depleted, exhausted, haunted by this unreturned love, by the thought of you with another, by the certainty that you can't be mine. I can't write you a love letter, I just need to write you goodbye. This can't be a love letter, because you don't love me."
So moving, heartbreaking, and so real. Thank you for this.
My pleasure, trooper, and thanks for the comment!
This was, believe it or not, a depleting series of letters to write, they left me emotionally drained!
Hi Elena, I am finally allowing myself to read this again and to comment. I guess it is very important to say goodbye otherwise it will always haunt you. And this letter reminded me of several relationships I've had that ended pretty painful..and the good-bye was very essential part of letting go and moving on. As for loving someone and not being loved, I had to laugh at myself at this one. So many memories suddenly erupting from everywhere. Thumbs up for this letter! :-)
Hello there, ripplemaker! Yes, saying goodbye is a fundamental part of letting go, and if you happen to read the full saga, this letter writer managed to actually let go :-) (much to the dismay of some romantics out there!)
Revisited this one. As before still a gem of writing. I think your Spanish (latin) fire and passion shine through like a Flamenco dance. I love this it's pain it's passion.
Howdo, sixtyorso! I'm very glad this one still does things to you :) Besos!
And Besos to you too! LOL
BTW Nice to see the face behind the atavar. great pic.
Oh you've been discovered by HP! First thing I did when I read the newsletter was come over to read because I was fascinated at the idea of writing letters on hubs. And your answers made me giggle quite a bit!
To be honest? I never truly had unrequited love to which it overwhelmed me with such passion, such sadness. I've often found them in romance novels, though, and it made me wonder. I can imagine it isn't pleasant, but to experience it.... that itself seems powerful experience to me.
However, I have loved from afar so passionately that I couldn't stand it. He was a married man with children. We were polyamorous, so his wife loved my boyfriend as well as I loved her husband. She was cold him for years before this poly situation occurred and I could only think to myself, "Why cold to this wonderful, passionate, temperamental Irish man?"
He and I were only allowed to love in bits and spurts, but within we loved and desired so much. When we showed an iota of affection for each other, the other two resented it because they had different ideas of what we should do or feel. They have always been controlling.
She walked out. He breathed. I held my breath until the storm was over and we found each other liberated.
Such images invoked by your letter!! Such memories. Thank you.
Hello, Sunny! Au contraire, thank you for sharing the memories. I don't know that I've ever *felt* such dramatic passion myself --or maybe I have, but I'm not telling, here's me being mysterious ;-) but I made an extra effort in capturing the feeling on paper, didn't I?
I'm happy that my answers made you giggle... I'm fond of making people giggle with my silly ways :-)
Well, I see what all the Elena hubbub is about! ;) You have a profound and immense talent. Whoa. Seriously! I will definitely be back for more. Must go make sure I'm a fan!!!
You comment made me giggle, RooBee :-) I don't know that all the hubbub is so justified, but I'll take the compliment with as much grace as I can and thank you for your kindness :-)
Well written about unrequited love, a love so genuine and deep that only those of us who love someone this way can relate so well to each and every word.
I am in love with a man who has no idea how I feel, and even if he did, I know would never love me back. But you can't help who you fall in love with, you can't stop your heart from feeling joy simply from looking at the one you love while hoping to get just a little closer to them. I can't stop thinking of this man, he is on my mind all the time, I wonder what he would think if he only knew. In my mind I can kiss his sweet lips whenever I want to. He makes love to me in my dreams while I yearn for him during my waking hours. This is not a fantasy or type of infatuation, it is love, unrequited love, and is real.
Thank you for your well written piece on something that I have never experienced before, but know will last until the end of my days.
Thanks for your comment, yearning. I agree that unrequited love is very real. Even if one's corresponded, the feelings are still there in full force. I think time helps with this, but I also think that unrequited love has a way of never fully vanishing because it has a taste of "unfinished" business... I wish you the best.
You are welcome and thank you. It is very real and I believe I will feel this love until the end of my days like I said. Unlike you, I don't want to say "goodbye" I long for the man I love and all I can do is hope, even if my hoping is in vain. Even though you're saying goodbye, I can feel every bit of love you have for this person through your words as I feel that same love for the man I so deeply desire. Again, great writing!
Wow. That was incredibly good. I wish I'd read it oh say 20 years ago, lol.
Things Considered, hindsight is something else, isn't it? Laugh!
Oh yeah.
well well well i forgot about the passion on hub pages and the effect it has on me.... don't know if it is good for my heart, as i am getting old.... but i likes it
Hey, Brenda -- Passion is good for your heart, I'm sure :-)
Huh.......
Nothing better then this I ever read. Thanks Darl for the wonderful wonderful piece.
My pleasure, Sanjay!
Wow! This is beautiful, your words flow so well and you write with such emotion. I feel your pain, it's so moving and sad :( brilliant writing Elena! :)
Thank you, sophs. It's not my pain you read in here, but I'm glad you feel pain when reading :-)
Hi Elena, kudos to you for writing such a deep, emotionally charged form to convey, bon'voyage, without sounding threatening, immature or irrational. I wish I could borrow the same to interpret these feeling to the one I love/loved, without actually plagiarizing your God bestowed talent!!!
Merci beau coup!!!
Hello to you, A.M., and first of all thank you for the comment!
Comments like yours make me take a deep breath and simply say, go on and borrow whatever you need from this letter. I certainly won't mind, on the contrary, I'm quite honored that this letter could convey what others have meant to convey, and that it grasps accurately and without "fanfare" the feelings of unrequited love most of us have felt at one time or another.
thanks elena , that's all what i want to say but i cant , i want to cry but i cant , actully i'm in the same situation :(
Tamer, I'm not in this situation anymore, but I was once, I guess we all are at one point in our lives. I think, when we are there, we can't really say it, only later, if ever... that's the thing with unrequited love, it runs deep and generally silent. Take care.
your letter hit home, cried reading it.
It's how i've been feeling....not loved was i ever loved???
questions that i'll never get...cuz my partner decided it was best to walk away without a saying!
do i have a saying?...anyways Elena ....it's simply bold and beautiful and hurtful yet....so true!
Thanks for your comments, Broken, but sorry to hear about your story.
You do have a saying in how YOU feel, but not much of a saying in how OTHERS feel. Unfortunate and painful, but that's how it is. Good luck, I hope it gets better.
This is really terrific, completely accurate. One of the problems with this type of love is that it is not validated, and therefore it can create a sense of shame. Unless such depth of feeling is returned, it's labeled obsessive. I wish I could put a stop on my feelings until I know how the other person feels, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way...Thanks for the inspiration!
I am in this situation, I did finally write how I felt, he didn't feel the same way...and now he's visiting my city and wants to hang out. I didn't imagine I'd have to say no because my own feelings haven't subsided in the least.
Hello, Capitula! You're so right about unrequited love being labeled obsessive. When two people feel the same way about each other, it's called "all-encompassing", instead when it's only one person who feels it, it's labeled obsessive...
The thing is, I think ALL forms of love are somewhat obsessive, but only the one-way variety is perceived as such.
I wish you a tranquil passing into acceptance, it seems like you already took the first step to moving on. Best to you and thanks for the great comment!
This is very nice on and this will let you know what love is about
goldentoad 3 years ago
its always good to open up your heart, any rivers of pain, and let them flow
the matador hears the gasp of the crowd, looks down to see the blood dripping from the sword