Shamrock Tea
Letter Two: Dragon's Blood

To my love who I cannot love,

As I sit here on a bench in a secluded area of this park, provided with shade from the sweltering heat of the day by a grand oak, I watch you. You are lying on your back in the grass and the atmosphere surrounding the two of us is heavily laden with things left unsaid and even more things that cannot be taken back. I have allowed my mouth to runaway from me once again and no longer are my thoughts my own. My secrets have all been laid before me and revealed to you. I watch as you close your eyes and I manage, even from this distance that is neither long or short, to single out each and every one of your fine eyelashes as they all lay in neat little rows against your skin. I think of the times when I had so desperately yearned to share with you what I have let fall from my lips and am ashamed by my foolishness. Some small part of me wished that you would take me into your arms and hold me after you discovered why I blush whenever you speak to me about things I rather wish you and I would have discovered together instead of you and another. I feel so much like a child now that I have realised that you will never feel for me the way that I feel for you. I am ashamed of these thoughts and these feelings but that does not keep them from existing and strengthening with each passing second.

The wind is blowing a bit more consistently now and I watch as the steady breeze flutters your hair about. I want to lay down beside you and run my fingers through it because while it is short, it's fine and silky. I know this from my dreams, my fantasies, and the many times I've touched it under the pretence of leaning past you to get to something else. I see the beauty that you possess and I want to declare to the world how passionately I love you and how often and in what ways I would demonstrate my feelings for you, but I resist. I love you. I am so much in love with you! I imagine our bodies interlocking just now and I feel the heat course through my veins at the mere thought of my flesh on yours, my lips pressed to yours, your eyes boring into mine as you come. I wish that you would just give me the smallest indication that these thoughts, hopes, and dreams mean something to you. I do not want to be merely friends. I want to be your lover. However, if you showed to me now that you cared about me, I would accept who you are so long as you would accept who I am, even if you do not wish to be with me.

The explosion scared away the birds. I remember it so clearly as it was only an hour or so ago when you said such hostile and hateful things to me. I had not even meant to say what I had. I had simply been curious as to what you had been spending your summer holiday doing. I was jealous and envious when you mentioned a girl's name to me. I thought that we were meant to be together and after so many years of loving you and desiring you, I was supposed to hold my tongue? The last logical thought I can remember having was that you deserved to be happy. Then, I said the most horrible thing I could possibly have said at that time 'You deserve to be happy, but not with someone like her. You should be with me!' The words echoed in my vacant head for all sense had seemed to escape me after that until you turned on the path, grabbed me by the shoulders and stared so intensely into my eyes I knew that you were somehow reading my mind. I was ashamed. I felt my cheeks grow red as I tried to look away but you grabbed my chin between your thumb and forefinger and stared ever so much more deeply into my eyes. After what seemed like an eternity you went into a tirade that very nearly broke my heart and whilst I knew it only lasted a few short minutes, it felt as if it had been going on for hours. Then you pushed me away at the same time you let go of my shoulders and stormed off. I stumbled backward and fell onto the gravel path but I did not cry even though it would certainly have been justified and I could feel the tears welling up inside me as the small, jagged rocks cut into the palms of my hands. I straightened up, dusted myself off, and continued on the trail, in search of you, until I noticed you lying here in the grass.

I do not even know if you have noticed that I am here. I have been watching you for an hour although it seems so much longer than that. I wonder what you will say when you open your eyes, sit up and take sight of me. Will you shout at me again? Will the sky fill with the flocks of birds that are resting in the nearby trees? I watch you, my heart frozen with fear and tears accumulating in my chest, and think of how wonderful it must have been for that girl when you were inside her. I think of how I despise her and at the same time long to be her, just so that I would have felt some affection from you. I think of what you said and I have to look away from you. 'She told me that she was a virgin. I was her first.' I blink and tears roll down my cheeks but I make no sound of protest. I look back at you and the pain in my heart is now so intense that I can no longer bear to look at you. I stand and, with one long, lingering look back at you, walk away into a life that you will always play such a painful role in. All that this has taught me is that I am ashamed not only of who I am but of who you are or rather who I sometimes believe you to be...