Love Letters

Love Letters


To the girl too excited to sit on the train, instead standing till her legs are tired and the straps of her bag cut into her shoulders –

Things won't be different.  Change isn't a click-finger-and-it's-done affair – change is years and years of pain and joy that'll burn and sear you.  Dreams don't float around in the air for you to catch in your tiny fingers and press to your quick-beating heart.  

But keep thinking they do, and that change is as easy as that! – and the hope will keep glowing, and – who knows?

Maybe someday, dreams will drift like little bubbles in a swirling kaleidoscope of colour.

Don't wait for change to happen –

Make it happen.

(And don't forget I love you, darling)


To the girl who scored the second-highest mark in the grade for her yearly Maths test (and will cherish the victory) –

Victories don't come just because you've got the first one.  "You may have won the battle, but it doesn't mean you've won the war."  You're naïve like that, full of ideals and beliefs about a world that (sorry) doesn't exist.

Of course, with you, idealism becomes reality, and naivety becomes possibility.  You don't realise, though – how your wishes infect others, how your desire to help everyone is something you don't keep a desire.

Good luck,

(Love you)


To the girl standing in the shower as blood and tears and scalding water run down her wrists and body to swirl in the drain –

Blood isn't anything special, you know – water, iron, oxygen – and yet, you insist on spilling your own in some archaic-ly melodramatic teenage ritual.  Pointless, dearest; but if you must, then who am I to refuse you?  But remember, for me, that scars may remain forever.

But pain will wash away, like the blood mingling with tears and tears blending with water, to leave emptiness in its wake.

Who knows?  Maybe happiness will fill the void, and you won't do this again.  (I hope, anyway.)

Keep fighting.


To the girl recreating the world in her mind because to her, all the horrors and gruesome pain of fantasy are refuge compared to the realities of life –

Don't lose yourself.  Life's only too willing to let you release your grip, because there's always someone else can take your place.

That's life, though – not me.  Because there's a multitude of adolescent, wrist-cutting girls.

But there's only one you.

Don't give up, darling.


To the girl who thinks that love is an illusion –

Gods, no.  I don't deal with illusions, so either love exists or I don't.  Defeatist nihilistic attitudes don't suit you, dearest – you fight too much for something so apathetic and emotionless.  Serenity is so not your thing.

Before you dismiss love as an illusion, don't forget to discover just what the illusion is.

Best wishes, love.


To the girl who's telling the crying other girl that if she really wants to cut her wrists, she should try a razor –

Since I know how you know that, I won't ask.  And since I'll always believe in your judgement, I won't question whether that was the wisest thing you could have said.

But it'll turn out that it was the right thing, and when you stare out into the velvet darkness on a warm Gold-Coast night, thinking that the other girl will be amazing, I'll be there too, thinking that you're always amazing (and hoping that you might open your eyes and accept it.)

Keep thinking.


To the girl who can't stop smiling for hours because her boyfriend said she has a nice smile, and thinks she's pretty when she knows she never will be –

No, you probably won't.  Because you'll always be beautiful.  Pretty's nothing compared to you.  The reason no one'll ever call you pretty isn't because you don't deserve the word –

It's because the word doesn't deserve you.

So keep looking, and when you finally see yourself, I hope I'm there to see your smile.  And yes, you do have a nice smile.  You need someone to tell you that to see it, though.  Even after they tell you, you won't see it.

But I'll tell you till the end of time, every day till you're sick of hearing it, and just maybe, you'll begin believing it.

Don't ever forget how to smile.


To the girl brushing her hair in the shower and not caring that the one she loves is thinking of anything but her right now –

Transience.  Life is transient, and so is happiness, and not even enlightenment can stand in the way of teenage hormones – but he's not thinking of you...

And your point?

Because I'll always be thinking about you.

'You are my life' might be too much of a cliché right now, but it's true (and always will be.)

So tomorrow you'll care, and maybe you won't, but at least you'll never forget how to love.

May your priorities always be clear.


To the girl who laughs and cries and thinks that having the Aqua album isn't anything to be ashamed of, who dreams of dancing colours and faraway places she'll never see, who sings in the shower when her sister's teaching piano, who walks into the living room wrapped in a towel (because she forgot her clothes) as her father looks on in bemused surprise –

To the girl whose bedroom walls are full of gymnasts and periodic tables, who said 'no' when offered $5000 to go on exchange, who's taken it for granted that late trains are a cause for tears, who wants to make two million films because she wants everyone's dreams to come to life too, who procrastinates by looking up Ancient Persia and writing about the Mage Wars of a world that'll never be, who would apply for Modern Greek, just for the hell of it –

To the girl who thinks nothing of playing flute in the middle of the school grounds, who pretends not to care about anyone but really worries so much it could kill her, who lives in fantasies and shares them with the world, who isn't afraid to burst out into a fit of screaming and crying in the middle of the pavement while hugging her viola case like a teddy bear –

To the girl who might one day stand in front of the mirror and grudgingly admit that he was right, and she might have a modicum of female attractiveness in her –

Just for the record –

There'll always be someone who thinks you're attractive.

Don't ever think otherwise...

Love you, dearheart.


To the girl who's being told every day that she's amazing and beautiful and intelligent and funny, and is terrified that one day it'll stop and her heart will stop with it –

There'll always be someone who loves you, who thinks you're amazing and beautiful and intelligent and funny –

There'll always be someone who'll die for you, who will live for you even if it tears them apart.

And even as you leave me, I know you're not really, because you've never known I'm here.  But I'll walk you down the aisle, and hand you over to him with a smile on my face, because when I do, I'll know that there'll be someone else who'll love you and think you're perfection personified.

And, hey – if you ever need me, I'll be kicking around somewhere over here.
Never stop living...

~  Ara signing off here (:  

P.S. Sorry, dearest, but I have to tell you – you know the Aqua album?

Ditch it. Now.

(Sorry.)