The Glass Siren

To my past self, beware the beauty made of glass.

Even as I write this, I cannot help but picture the moment you met her. Saw her cunning, vicious eyes. Her inquisitive look and disarming charm.

Her first words to you are, "Have we met before?", and if you knew what I know, you'd say, "You're going to wish we never did."

But we didn't say that. We flirted, and made some stupid joke about leaving an impression.

She laughed breathily, and right then, all your rules about who you would date go out the window. You hate gossip, but when she shares it, it's elevated into Machiavellian wit.

Nail polish irrationally irritated you. Until the moment she started coating your nails with it, and you got lost staring at her.

Time blended with the layers, burying something ragged and blunt under colour and shine.

She doesn't move through the world, she stops it and makes it revolve around her. Nothing looks the same through the prism of being with her. Light will bend into dazzling colours. The world will take on alien forms. You think it's exotic, and it is.

The rainbow never looked as vibrant as did when you were with her. Walking around for six hours, going nowhere, was never as engaging as it was with her. You never wanted to go home, just keep walking, listening to her.

You think you mean something to her. You don't, at least, not in the way you should. She wants you to be her podium, the crutch and support to her painful, gorgeous chaos.

You think her sharp glass won't cut you, that her sharp tongue and even sharper words will spare you. It did, and you'll have the scars to prove it.

I tell you this in vain because I know how it felt. Love is like rain to a starved desert. No drop can be wasted or lost. So you'll cling. Bask in the paradise of secret laughter and warmth on rainy days.

But there will be days when the sun is out, and all you feel is cold. Don't stay when you feel it.

Don't go, when she turns up at your door, asking for a second chance.

She'll sing the second you want to leave, make your heart shatter with her apologies, make the world better with her love.

You'll go for ice cream at 3 in the morning with her. Her joy, her freedom and acceptance of who she is so potent, that you get drunk every time you look at her. Hours will go by, following along like a dog leashed to her soft hand, wrapped around yours.

At first, her sly jokes on others will make you stiffen. Then you'll laugh openly, no matter the target.

Everything bad about her can be coated in shiny, pretty layers too. One after the other, smooth, seamless. Perfect.

Yes, sometimes it's hard with her. But love is hard, you'll argue.

You've spent a lifetime loving people who hurt. You're a singed moth, forever dancing around the dangerous flame of love. Who better than you to be there for her?

That's what you're thinking right? Stop.

Who cares if you're unwanted? Because she wants you. And that's the trap, the siren's song.

Even worse, you'll only make her sad. In your scarred palms, the twinkling glass looks like diamond shards.

You'll wipe away her tears, and convince her that she's normal. She doesn't need help. You'll make her think that you don't need help.

When she makes a crazy plan, you'll make it crazier. You shout back at her when she complains. You beg her to stay when she threatens to leave.

I know all the excuses we will tell ourselves. So I'll spare you a whole lot of pain, and trust me that you need to leave.

In the future, it all comes to a crashing end in the sterile, cleansed waiting room of a psych ward. You're both miserable when it ends, and it ends devastatingly. Neither of you are ready to deal with the other.

I'm asking you to not let it come to that.

Leave. Break off the shaft of Cupid's arrow buried in your chest.

It's going to feel like you're tugging out your heart and everything else. No pain, physical or otherwise will compare to the molten lava in your chest and the frostbite on your skin.

Memories of your time together will be wraiths, and it'll feel worse than actual death. It's death in absentia, death of something that could have been. Something that everything will remind you of.

She's the first person you'll want to tell good news, bad news, and everything in between to. The withdrawal will be excruciating.

But for both of you, you should leave. The second you saw her you wanted her to be like you. You wanted to complete her, be the other half of her fractured soul.

She's not the ballerina to your tin man. And the sad part is, you don't see that. You won't see that, not until you're me.

No, you ruined it for both of us, the past and present.

You playfully made joined trips to the mall special. You daydreamed about a future with her, about arguments over decorations and paint choices.

You thought you'd calm her anxiety, and she'd quieten your paranoia. It doesn't work like that.

The good times always fooled you into ignoring the cracks in the foundation. The terror and hurt you felt around her shouldn't have been forgotten. The insensitive ways you discussed her past should not have been forgiven.

You're not the answer to what she needs. We're won't become who she needs, so don't bother Googling what to do.

I wish I could tell you I'm asking you to leave her because something better comes your way in the future. It hasn't yet, and maybe it won't.

In the meantime, don't make someone as preciously beautiful as her go through this. Don't let yourself feel pain a hundred times worse than anything ever before.

Love is complicated. But maybe if this letter reaches you in time, we'll be less complicated for the future.

Maybe instead of a siren, we'll find a songbird.

Best wishes,

You.

P.S. Before you idiotically come out to everyone you know, you should know that everyone already knew. The flannel was a dead giveaway.