a letter to a past lover

Dear Past Lover,

Sometimes, I pretend you don't exist.

I pretend that you never held my hand or yanked my shirt off. That we never argued or that a friend never told me that you just weren't the right kind of boy for me. I pretend that you didn't laugh at how my bra straps didn't match my bra sometimes or that I never pulled you towards me to inhale you+Davidoff Cool Water.

I pretend that I don't think of you when I see that aquamarine bottle. That I'm not assaulted by the smell of you.

Sometimes, I pretend you don't exist.

When people ask me how many boyfriends I've had, I forget (deliberately, at times) to count you. I don't quite know why. It isn't that you hurt me or betrayed me, or that I'm still angry about all the crap that saw us go weeks without speaking...until this thing didn't make sense anymore and it was time to call it a day. No, it isn't any of that.

It isn't that you were a particularly terrible boyfriend- believe me, I've had worse. It isn't that you don't fit into my normal pattern of "men" or that you'd never even heard of Camus...

It's the unibrow.

It works for some boys. It doesn't for you.

In vanity,
A Past Lover