This One Is Not for You

By Regina Castro

I wrote you a book but you never read it. 

I wrote you a million letters but you did not respond.

I told you I loved you but you never heard it.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regina Castro
• Release date: Aug 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386580577

Book preview

I wrote you a book but you never read it.

I wrote you a million letters but you did not respond.

I told you I loved you but you never heard it.

THIS IS MY STORY.

I do not mind if your stomach churns while reading it,

If bile rises up your throat and your heart bursts out your rib cage while scanning over the words.

It's how things happened.

Through my eyes.

It's how I felt

At the time.

It's the dreams I´ve had,

The scenes I've imagined,

It's how each one marks my skin,

Even if I did not agree to another tattoo.

It's the recollection of nights I spent staring at the ceiling,

Smoking out in the open,

Crying in my car,

with the windows all the way down because I was feeling claustrophobic

Even if at some point I convinced myself there was nothing else to write about.

It's the damage and injuries I've endured.

The memories, basically.

Of a time filled with love,

Grief and hope.

I refuse to forget any of it.

Autumn

...............

A MESS

You should know I'm a mess.

And I cry too easily and I break very often.

You should know I never say I love you back

for fear you won't hear it.

Neither do I say it first,

for fear you won't return it.

You should know I am fragile.

For being put in a jar a few years back and shaken,

shaken until my head hit the ceiling so many times I lost it.

You should know I am afraid of swimming.

Since the last time I tried, I submerged my lungs.

You should know I am afraid of my own feelings.

For my broken lungs fail to protect my heart.

You should know I am willing to love you with all that's left of me,

even if a head I no longer possess.

Even if I run out of breath while doing so,

Even if my heart I am risking.

I will love you with all I've got.

I will love you with all I have left.

But you should know maybe it's not enough, and I understand.

For a mess I am and a mess I will surely make.

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THIS IS LOVE

I remember that morning we stayed awake until 6am. I remember the way you smelled and the way you held me against your right shoulder. We were laying on the sand while the ocean rumbled all around us. I remember thinking, this is what it's supposed to feel like. This is what it's supposed to look like. This is what the songs are all about. What the Sun shines for. What the poets write about. This is love.

MY WEAKNESS

I claimed to be made out of tin.

I claimed to be made out of ice.

I repeated to myself the words "you are cold hearted" every night for them to pierce my brain and travel through every fissure and every fold.

But when it comes to you, my heart is fabric and you're the needle intertwining yourself in thread and filling me up with color.

My heart is skin and you're a needle poking like a vaccine.

My heart is a body and you're the tattoo impregnating art on me.

My heart is a vein and you're the drips spreading through an IV.

PHILOPHOBIA

I am so scared.

Scared to death of getting consumed by someone and losing my balance.

I get terrified.

Of falling in love and then never stopping.

I am so afraid of the possibility of someone undressing me fully.

Every sin and insecurity.

I am so fearful of getting used to someone and then suddenly, getting hit by their absence.

As if they were never there.

As if the things that made them fall in love with me made them fall back out.

I am so anxious of everything that has to do with it.

That's why you horrify me.

WHY I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU

Most people can point out the exact moment when they fell in love. I apologize, for I won't be able to tell it in a similar manner. It was a million things all at once. A kaleidoscope of moments I didn't realize were happening. Whenever someone asked why I loved you, I never knew how to respond.

I fell in love with you for the thirty freckles on your face. I fell in love with you because you looked at me and I could read right through your eyes even though your mouth wasn't moving. I fell in love with the way you teased me for not being strong enough to push you away when you fell on top of me. I fell because even though we were silent most of the time, I swear I felt as if I’d known you forever. I fell in love with you for those calls at midnight when I was falling asleep and your voice got through my phone. The stars witnessed it, I swear. I fell in love with you because you claimed to be so strong, so emotionally stable, so cold that no one could reach you, when in reality you were soft. You were so soft, I could see right through you when you were falling apart. You were so soft I knew you´d suffered. Soft enough for me to know you too were falling in love.

THE MOMENT I DID

I'd never understood people who could pick out the moment when they figured out they loved a person. For me, it was just an overall feeling of love like a cloud hovering above.

With you though, it was different. It was that day we were waiting in line at the airport to get back home and you were ahead in line because we´d fought in the middle of our trip. We never said sorry. I watched you open the door and walk away towards the plane. I watched you as you were, without our memories in the back of my head. Just you. Walking away from me. I think that's when it hit. When the possibility of me losing you forever punched me in the gut because it was real. Because I never did have you and you never got to know me well enough. But the feelings were there either way. I had never considered