Dear O,

I am writing this to you because you will never read it, but even as I type this, part of me refuses to believe that. I imagine sending you links to these anonymous letter websites. I imagine you caring enough, knowing me well enough to comb through these digital archives to find me. You say that you love things about me: my mind, my body, my creativity. It's too simple to imagine a universe in which all of those disparate adorations equal loving me.
I'm just a waiting room where you glance at the door, anticipating the person you truly love calling your name. With you, all of the good things about me feel like out of date magazines. The best parts of myself are reduced to ephemera, only as significant as the boredom they suppress.
From you, I have two shirts that you originally bought for someone else. For you, I have written almost compulsively and dropped trinkets from my daily life at your feet like a cat delivering dead mice to their master's bed. It hurts to know that you will keep everything I have ever given to you as some smug souvenir. I burn at the thought of you running your fingers across my offerings, reliving whatever thrill I gave you while still not wanting me.
My longing stalks my footsteps like a haint dog. I hate myself for my desire. I watch you sneer over people who feel like me, and I sneer too because I want you to think that I'm better than this.
You're not a villain after all. We both knew what this was when we met. That first night, almost half a year ago, you smiled up at me from where you held me pinned in your lap and whispered "I'll never love you."
Most of all I'm disappointed in myself. I thought I was smarter than this. In reality, I don't even have the good sense to feel this way about someone who doesn't get off on hurting me.
Maybe disappointment isn't the right word. The last time we spoke, I asked if you were worried about not seeing me when I go back to college. You shrugged and told me, "I guess I'd be disappointed." The way you said that word makes it sound like nothing.
So perhaps the word I've been looking for is ashamed. I love you. I love you and I'm ashamed. I love you and I wish that, even though you don't love me back, some part of you would ache along with me at your rejection. You're usually so good at hurting me in ways that stop me from feeling lonely. Why can't this at least be one of them?