Elisabeth Writing

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From strangers to lovers.

From lovers to strangers.

A timeless story. 

I don’t know why it breaks my heart to think that one day, I could pass you on the street without breaking stride or slowing down. 

That you might not smile at the sight of my blonde waves, or the flowers perched in them like an exotic bird. 

I wonder why it hurts so much to know that I don’t know. I don’t know you anymore, and I never will again. 

I’m happy. In love. Content. I hope you are, too.

But you’re a stranger now… and that fills my chest with rain clouds. Even now, you can see the storms passing in my cloudy green irises, waiting for the rainbows and the soft clouds of “the after.” 

We were never that, though. 

We were a monsoon season that never seemed to end.

But didn’t you love the feeling of the thunder in your bones, as we pulled the blankets over our head and told stories, shivering with lightning?

I wonder where you are these days. Do you think about me from time to time, when Titania sleeps in her bower, or when Pedro the Lion is singing about poison, or when a poem makes your dimples appear despite yourself? Do you still watch the shows we laughed over together or did you have to stop (like me)? Do you ever go to the cafe where we met and remember how flushed and tongue tied I was as I met your gaze? Do you recall how our bodies barely brushed but it felt like electric fireflies under our skin? 

Those first few weeks were a fairytale. I felt like a faerie godmother had waltzed in and struck us blind and dumb with love at first sight. It was like my whole body went into shock at the sight of cardinal curls and eyes like the Irish hills I’d so recently prayed on. Every time our eyes met – held – I’d forget to breathe. I kept fiddling with my hair, chewing my lip, stumbling over knots in my tongue, all while your eyes took in every inch of me. It was beautiful. It was annihilating. Atomic bombs of longing and love went off around us, and we were the sole survivors in that new wasteland. I took your hand and asked for a dance while that magical godmother clapped and hummed a tune for us. It’s just… How did I not realize, then, that she had shark teeth hidden behind curving pink lips, and blood stained blades down her boots? Did you know?

It’s so strange to me that I was once the passenger in your car, curling up in my big coat as we hunted for a red jacket, laughing about the snow and about how simple love felt. That was foolish. Whatever we were, it wasn’t simple. We were never simple, even alone, but especially not then. I was reeling from grief. I didn’t mind the dark rooms, and the way we shut out the entire world when we were together, the way your eyes shone like a jungle cat in those man-made shadows. I lost who I was, before we even met. I lost who I was, before I even lost my father. I lost who I was and I was content to hide in our shadows. In yours. Now, I’m the one to shove away the blinds and pry open the windows, to dance and prance in the light. I’m a creature of prism rainbows and crystals caught in golden rays. You don’t know that girl. You knew the broken one. You loved the broken one. And I loved you, too. 

I was reading old letters between us. The spectrum went from, “I love you more than anyone, anything. I will find you in every world. You are it.” 

To, “I hate when we fight. You make me feel like I’m less than nothing. It makes me want to bang my head against the wall until your words spill out in blood and fire.” 

As a woman with Bipolar 1, I know all about spectrums. The highs and the lows. The valleys and mountains. And we were that. A Bipolar manic episode, spilling milky wave desire onto rockets we straddled, limbs twisted together like Saturn rings, love letter meteorites hurtling towards one another. I don’t think I’d ever reached that high before, even before my Seroquel and Wellbutrin cocktail. It was intoxicating. Like we were scooping up the stars into our hand, drinking them as we laughed and stretched our fingertips even higher, like there were more horizons to ascend to. And then the rocket fuel would sputter out, and we’d begin our crash. “You’re nothing to me, no one will ever take your art seriously, you’re a despicable liar, I am completely over you, fuck you, I don’t want you.” That fall hurt more than nearly anything. If I hadn’t just experienced the loss of my father, I don’t know if I could have survived the grief we put one another through. And even still, I was all broken bones on the ground, my brain spilling into the grass, my heart nothing but a mass of dying stars and pulpy meat. So why did I keep getting up when you held out your hand? Why did I keep taking the rocket to space? Why couldn’t we quit each other?

We couldn’t quit each other.

Until we did.

You are a lover turned stranger.

I don’t wish you harm. 

I hope you find happiness.

I am happy. I’ve found a love that’s quiet and peaceful, sweet and solid. It’s different. It hurts less. 

And so, I mean this with all my heart when I say…

Let’s stay strangers.