cigarettes ☹ alex turner

epilogue

Kim,

I've written a series of letters to you. i've written quite a few, so we could remember everything that happened between us, and looking back, I don't regret anything.

They're all poems, however. This one isn't. I'm sorry about that, I know how much you love your poetry but I also know how much you love me.

I was also like you, Kim. I used to share the same low self esteem that you still struggle with today. I was lucky to not go through the fraction of what you went through, and still are going through but it was still quite bad.

 It sucks, and I'd do anything to make you believe the true image of yourself. I can picture you rolling your pretty blue eyes already, sweetheart, but I wouldn't lie to you for anything but you.

I hated myself. I used to find it impossible to look at myself in the mirror and not burst in to tears because I thought the idea of somebody loving me was more bizarre than a cow flying to the moon at night.

I watched many people fall in love and I just couldn't imagine it. I couldn't. It made no sense to me. People would ask me if I ever wanted a girlfriend, as if I ever thought of it and I couldn't think of an answer because whilst everyone was fantasising about their 'second half' I could only think about how much I made the world worse.

I would have multiple crushes on people, and nobody would ever want me back. My tiny little heart was smashed against a mirror every single time I liked someone. It hurt quite a lot.

No matter how many times I got hurt by the unrequited feelings I had for people, nothing prepared me for the fucking roller coaster that I experienced with you, my love.

When we were apart, I wasn't only missing you, I found myself hating myself the way that I did in my teenage years. I felt like a monster for everything I did for you, even though it was initially for you. I didn't know whether I did the right thing or not.

Till this day, I don't know.

Everyday I would walk into school and have no interest in any of the things that I used to love. I used to love teaching. I used to love seeing you, but then it was just a painful reminder of everything I did wrong.

I destroyed you.

The Kim, that I made once so happy. I remember, you could never stop smiling, I made you eat a little, sleep a little, and be a little more calm. I don't know how I did, but I did.

Then I made you feel everything that I didn't want you to feel.

My precious Kimberly's eyes shadowed with darkness as her skin colour displayed the opposite. She ate what she wanted to be: nothing. You couldn't tell, but I looked at you so intensively because I feared that you were going to disappear before my eyes, and I couldn't bear the thought.

I couldn't bear the thought because I love you Kimberly.

I love you. I hope you know that by now. I know everyone says that a little too much, and sometimes it loses its meaning, but nothing makes me feel more true to my words than saying that. 

I love you. I know you question meaning, so here you go. It means being around you is enough. It means you make life worthwhile. It means I care about you so much, but it never feels like enough. It means that you make me so fucking happy and that I'm the luckiest man on earth, just because I met you. You don't realise how much you mean; what you are, not just to me, but so many people who love you.

You make me crazy, in every sense of the word. Music sounds better, the sun shines brighter, and your face is the never ending reminder that I can't imagine cherishing anything more than you.

I know it hasn't been easy for us. Far from it, actually. Our age difference, me being a teacher, how you've been struggling, none of it's been easy. But I think, we're both at a point where we're ready. I don't care what comes in the way. Nothing has ever felt more right than loving you. We have to trust, respect, care and love, and lucky for us, all of that just comes naturally to us anyways. 

I want to spend the rest of my life being with you and getting to know every single detail of you. I just want you to know I'm ready to, whenever you are. I am here and ready for everything to come, good or bad, because nothing feels as bad as when we were apart.

You and I are something special. Truly, I could never put my finger on what it was that made it special, but I've come to realise that it was love. Love is passion, love is lust, love is everything beautiful mixed with everything horrible all at once. Love isn't just happiness, it's utter heart break, it's loss, it's raging, scary anger, it's sadness from the depth of your soul. Love is the most terrifying and the most exquisite things put together into a mix of something that I haven't quite decided my opinion of.

Our story hasn't ended, and I don't think it ever will. After all, you're a never ending metal circle, and I'm a magnet. We're together because of something deadly, that we turned to beauty. Cigarettes.

Kim, this is me saying that I don't care what happens. I don't know anything beyond the present, but the present is telling me that I love you.

I love you, Kim, and I'm excited for every tragic incident, angry, painful argument and the mountain of cheesy, loving lines that we exchange with another.

It's the beginning of the end, the introduction to destruction, my love.

yours quite literally,

- Al