Return to Sender
written by: M. Davidson
Nostalgias Reverie
Confessions always have this…this aura about them….this haunting dogma that I’m disclosing something in need of repentance….
A novice to intimacy; though I mastered holding your darkest parts; demure but secure; in ambient lightning…just bright enough to expose them to the fallacy in my pages…
What if I wish to remain a closed book on your shelves?
Then at least I wouldn’t have to ask Vulnerability to cite references on how I loved you in the silence between my words….
What if I didn’t take inventory and catalog my bookmarks….
bookmarks damp with ambrosias bliss….holding space for memories of you that I got drunk off of but haven’t read all the way through…or ones I have yet to make once trust took root…
bookmarks that source citations alarming accusations that I, a writer, skipped your best parts….
What if I never wanted to be put in the least popular broken wing of my library and tirelessly sort through articles….
Page long professors on self help handbooks that gave me the “nuts-and-bolts” version of our solid foundation turned natural disaster…a narrative of quotes that provoke me to jump off the ledges of my lament
—the cliff notes…”murder she wrote”; “practical guide” into how the spark in our connection died
….because of my shitty service…and late payments made on borrowed time… but by that time I had already dropped the call….
The ONE call I was sure I wouldn’t miss ….
of how the love you loaned has flown the coop on what I thought was a binding contract….a pact between initiatives….
initiatives you had to take on my behalf…. a transcript on how to lose your other half….
What if I never had to thumb through this stack of chapters on how
to ask you for closure….or clarity into what your pages held….because you were above my reading level….
Cause then at least the reader wouldn’t have to digest all these metaphors for this metamorphosis of a man who’s been reduced to a confused boy….a toy for for fickle faith’s hope….
So I’m writing this letter to you in hopes that I at least have enough toner in my cartridge left to create copies of my apology….
So that in some way, shape, or form….that by and large, on the average, and for the most part….our story was not a waste of space on your shelf….that maybe with enough reflection and temperance I can look in the mirror and see what you saw in me…..then maybe I can turn it into a best seller….
So I’m writing you today because, my conviction decided today that I must grant clemency to my sentences….
An end to my inner monologues
silence…
A silence I must break….rendering commission of our shared pages be restored….
Titled “Dear Agony…..forsake the silence…for her sake.”
What if I decided to change? To have my nature…a minefield filled with land mines all simultaneously detonate and take shelter in you and your tunnel vision….
to cave in and kneel before the way you nurture….
Perhaps it’s my turn give in….cause raising a white flag to the standing army of regrets and shameful remembrances of all the battles I won that still resulted in our loves catastrophic loss….doesn’t sound all that bad…
sounds a lot more peaceful than remaining a prisoner of this war of attrition commanded by revenant lament….
But…..but…..god dammit…..not today because my obsessions to make up for lost time lost track of time AND of course which chapter we left off on so…..I fear that I’ll get lost between the lines and this time—.
this time
-you won’t accept my bookmark…because you no longer need one…
to save a place for me on your shelf …..
Ironically…..I guess I can’t seem to find the right words to write…the right way to say you’re my favorite book… so I digress, to avoid looking foolish, I’ll think on it because I fear you won’t stamp it with approval….I’ll mail it tomorrow maybe….
…..maybe tomorrow….
I’ll have courage to ship off this letter and cast wind to my sail and finally send some fucking Accountability in the mail and maybe even find peace…..in knowing it’s my turn to surrender….
But for now, I’ll just remember….
P.S. Return to Sender
From an early point in his youth, he utilized language to overcome his speech impediment, wielding polysyllabic language to paint the concepts of love, loss, and awakening onto his canvass. Over time he would develop a style of writing that would become his own. His words are described as powerful, inspiring, and familiar to heart; able to capture the soul through pen and paper. He believes that cradling both agony and passion while casting their collective cadence in an exalted fashion allows others to view the extremes of life in an entirely new way, as a collective, not its individual parts.
- Return to Sender - March 23, 2021
