letters i'm afraid you read

I found this, yesterday, in my sent items folder. She never responded.

I'm worried that when I tell you I love you, you're dismissing it, like it's just something I say, some rote thing. I worry about that when I ask you how your day is, too. Or how you are. I want you to know that I ask these things because I care--about you more than about anything I've ever cared about. It is important to me that you know this, especially now.

I feel ridiculous but I feel lie [sic] you've come to define me somehow. Sometimes I worry that my love for you, my concerns, are selfish only--that's what they're telling me, isn't it? I love because it makes me feel better, to quell the empathic pain I feel with your pain--they use words like codependent and enabling and tell me I shouldn't try to help, I'm only making it worse, and I tell them I can't do that. We're in this together, you and I.

I'm worried you think I'm inconsistent, schizophrenic in my dealings with you--confident sometimes, worried at others. I'm a wreck, I'm a neurotic wreck, it's true. You know how they say the best way to see how a man will interact with a woman is to look at his relationship with his mother? I used to think that was silly--my mother passed away years ago, I would say--but now I wonder if I'm not forever five years old, trying to come to the rescue, feeling responsible. I want to save you, from everything. I want to take you away from all this.

I wonder if you recognize how much of what I say is planned? I wrote that last line in the last paragraph because it's a cliche, an old movie cliche--it captures everything so perfectly, so beautifully. I lace my letters to you with references to songs and movies and books because I'm sure you'll know them. Then I worry that perhaps you'll miss it entirely, and I will be left feeling vaguely ridiculous.

I hope you are well. I say this--I even write this in letters to others--but know that with you everything I say is uniquely sincere. With you I am incapable of lying, or of false sincerity, or of any ill intent. I truly hope that everything is well with you.

I am very truly yours,