Amy’s Note: Beautiful metaphor, used quite well in my opinion.
Dear the-boy-who-monopolizes-my-use-of-the-‘you’-pronoun,
I’d only leave this on your doorstep on a blustery day. Nothing of mine has ever been immune to being blown away, so why not stick to tradition?
My life has always been a dandelion of sorts. I suppose I must have been intact once, nestled in the soil, long enough ago to have left me with no recollection of it. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been mutilated and whittled away, seeds pirouetting into the wind, wishes being whispered like conspiracies - wishes that break me and bruise me rather than benefit me.
For the most part, I manage to watch with acceptance (and on good days, nonchalance) as the best parts of my existence scatter and fall and prepare to blossom without me into brilliance I will never witness, but it was vastly different with you. Simply put, you were the stem and I never dreamed that the backbone of something could be so vulnerable. But you weren’t the sturdy tree trunk I imagined you to be, and the wind was ruthless.
You didn’t take it all when you left, but your departure certainly drained the spirit out of whatever remained, reducing it to the lowly status of a tumbleweed, miniature and tattered, struggling to survive in a merciless expanse of desert. Sometimes, when the sun is particularly scorching, parched lips and dehydrated tongues wonder out loud if you put up a fight at all. They mull over the possibility that the wind didn’t take you hostage — that you were a willing passenger.
I’m still trying to work out whether or not it changes things. If you’re out there aching and reminiscing, does that numb my own pain? If you are happier than you’ve ever been and have moved on a million times in contrast to my stationary mindset, does that stunt my growth even further? I’m writing to you so that these questions can step out of the realm of ‘rhetorical’. I’m writing so that they’ll stop drumming on the inside of my skull and branding themselves onto the underside of my eyelids. I’m writing to you because, if an answer exists, you’re the only one who could possibly know it.
I’m writing because I’ve realised closure is more of a rarity than a right. But there are a thousand loose ends that need tying up and, although I know a happy one is a farfetched concept, I think it’s my turn for an ending. Symmetrical bows are out of the question, but it would only take your fumbling fingers a minute to execute a couple of knots. (Pull them tight; I couldn’t risk falling back here again.)
Love, the-girl-whose-heart-you-tried-and-failed-to-uproot.
21 
