Artwork by John Wesley

This is a small collection of the most beautiful, sometimes empowering, sometimes heartbreaking messages my former lovers sent me months or years after we parted ways. For what it’s worth, we all receive such aftermaths when the fairytale is gone and usually, we have already mourned and got on with our lives. Truth is, no one ever forgets the ones they loved, and, as the song says, we should not look back in anger. If your ego is huge, like mine was when I received these texts, you will probably feel flattered, or, at worst, bothered by their intrusion back in your life. But if you have skilfully managed to overcome the sadness, despair, anger and lacklustre a failed relationship drags into your everyday life, sit down at a table, re-read your own letters from exes, and, if you don’t have the heart to burn them down, revel at the very fact that you have cast upon someone, somewhere, the power to love you in entirety.

From the one who spent more time on Tinder than in real life with me:

“I found your Tinder profile. Mine said:  “I won’t go down in history but I will go down on you” and you know, can’t say anyone said anything remotely funny about that. So #godknows, they’re all just as bland don’t you worry.

The only reason you rarely see girls being so direct [and to some extent obscene] is that, really, there’s a cultural passivity ingrained in the female psyche and also, it’s easier to get sex without stooping to basically…begging. I don’t think they have more dignity or are in any way better. Of course, in general terms as you spoke.

In particular, you are very courageous.”

Artwork by John Wesley

From the one who forgot sex changes everything about a male-female friendship

“It’s always your call and having control is pretty great, isn’t it?  I guess I thought we could be friends. I don’t think I did that much to warrant resentment, but maybe I did in which case I’m sorry. It’s difficult for me to manage, expectations and intimacy stuns me. Well, excuses are like assholes. It’s bad mental hygiene to throw excuses around and hold them tight as a shield. Being right sucks.

You know, that first time you kissed me I almost got in a car accident.

But it’s ok, I can always clone you, I still have your DNA.

Wherever you go, I hope you are with peace and coffee.

PS: lack of response doesn’t mean ignorance.”

From the one who failed to see me because he was still hung over his ex

“You are – well, have
What Sylvia Plath lacked
the power to turn from bittersweetness to ultimate ecstasy
It breaks your heart and makes you sing at the same time.”

Artwork by John Wesley

From the one who was emotionally unavailable and only held my hand, texted me long emails, but never made love to me

“There were a lot of words that we said, a lot of words that I would take back and would hoped for another ending of all of this. I just want you to know, even in this dark hour, knowing you and meeting you was the best part of my year, even better than publishing my book in Paris. I did a lot of wrong, maybe, I don’t know, but I will never regret it, I will never regret meeting you and knowing who you are behind that mask you wear outside. There are songs, movies, moments, lyrics and books that we used for references, but nothing compares to life itself. I wish I would had been just a bit different and we would had been ok.”

From the one who abandoned me in the darkest time of my life, when I was struggling with depression

“I arrived home with this conclusion:

The people we loved will always stay with us. They will always travel in our hearts and we in theirs. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We can just try to make it more bearable by thinking at it as beauty…endless beauty. When I came back from the city I realized we haven’t sat together alone in the same room for almost 2 years now. And you entering my home was not bad, it just made me very emotional. I still love you, and I know you probably still love me. It was a love bubble between us and it never broke. When I got home, I played Mazzy Star with Fade Into You – it was the background noise I heard the very first morning when we walked together in your apartment, it was June at 7 am, after a drunken night…this song is so mellow and melancholic. It’s like falling in love in a dream and sleeping in a swing on the beach in the same time. Now I am dancing on my own in the living room with that memory and, all I really want to say is this: you have made me very, very happy, for the short time that we shared together. You took care of me, and you still do, even from the distance. Love is something so fragile and so strong, and it’s above time frames and geometries…it’s just like this song, and when I press play I know that you will always dance with me.”

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Ioana Cristina Casapu is the Managing Director of Art Parasites Magazine. She likes Brian Eno, airports and never says no to a good old Gin&Tonic. 

Read all her stories and poetry here.

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