Dearest Benjamin Gibbard,
Like most of my past relationships you showed up in my living room as a friend of my brother's, and like most of my brother's friends I ignored you until you said something of interest—you mentioned the stale taste of recycled air and I saw it as a sign of true potential. That's when I stopped talking over you, pretending you didn't exist, and I began listening to what you had to say. You found your way into my daily rotation. You turned the tables and used my own mind games against me. Each time I resisted, even slightly, you threw more poetic musings at me, reeling me in faster, forcing me into submission with the promise of knowing me inside and out. You were deep, and I like deep people, but I could only offer you friendship, nothing more, and you pretended to be okay with that.
The next time I saw you I was at a Halloween Party. You waited until I was drunk, passed out on the living room floor and vulnerable before you slunk out of a dark corner dressed as a cab driver. Even intoxicated I was able to recognize your voice behind the costume and I told you so. You laughed and told me I was cute when I slurred my speech. I swooned. At that point you grabbed me, hook, line, and sinker, and I've been flapping my fins ever since, gasping for air but never getting enough.
I love you, or I guess I love your words. It's like you reached into my chest, grabbed hold of my heart and every memory I keep there and turned them into shiny compact discs with alternating names. You appear randomly, sometimes the cab driver, sometimes the mailman, but either way you're delivering something, usually poetry that makes me love you more and makes me love myself less for being so powerless against you. But I always recognize your voice. I always recognize your words. And no matter how much I resist you keep pulling me closer. You are the drug causing my emotional instability and that makes you dangerous, but even in knowing the truth I don't want to end my addiction. I'm not sure if it's my heart that makes your music beat, or if it's your music that's beating my heart. Either way, I can't take that chance.
Love always,
Katheryn
P.S. My husband knows all about you and this letter. He thinks you're just a phase. I'm hoping he's right.
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