My Dear Arthur,

You had that look in your eyes—something wild. Already distant.
There was someplace you were already heading.
Someone waiting for you beyond the horizon.

You are the kind of man who never truly settles, only passes through.
You are a tempest of beauty and ruin woven together, leaving nothing untouched—and I now know why storms are named after people.

Oh, you’ll never change. I know that.

You never promised me anything.
Still, I dreamt of what it would be like to hold you long enough to soften your edges. To find a quiet corner in the world where something could be ours. Such soft and silly dreams I realise.

You kissed me like I mattered,
Then left like I didn’t.
I watched you leave me behind for places I could never follow.

I write you letters that gather dust in my drawers.
Words I can not bring myself to send, but cannot bear to throw away,
As if losing these letters meant losing the last pieces of you I can still hold.

I knew someone like you could never love someone like me.
Not for long.
Not in a way that would stay.

You were never mine to lose, but I lost you all the same.

Yours,
Mary