Dear Milena, Yours Sincerely

Dear Milena,

Did Kafka ever really see you, or was he looking at a distorted reflection of himself? Was his love for you a love for the woman he created in his mind, or for the emotion you made him feel in his soul? Could he have loved the entirety of you, the messy, imperfect, confounding you, had you not been so good at mirroring his messy self? Did he love you, or did he love the way you made him feel?

Did his love for you exist independently of his own desires and projections? Or was it nothing, where your role was to validate his feelings? Could he have loved the parts of you that didn’t serve his opinion?

Does he love you for being terrible at math? For always complaining? For not having a strong opinion? For being boringly neutral? Does he love you, or the idea of you he's created?

Dear Milena,

If he removed your name from his writings, would he still say it so kindly? If your eyes didn't mirror his soul, would he be so captivated by them? If his lips found no familiar taste in yours, would he still kiss you so passionately?

But what of your own heart, Milena? Did you see him as clearly as he saw you, or were you also caught in the confusion of your own perceptions? Did you love the man or the love you believed he offered? And in the end, does it matter?

Dear Milena,

I envy you. I envy the freedom of your ignorance. To exist without the burden of overthinking, of dissecting every thought, of searching for meaning in the meaningless. Perhaps it is a kind of bliss to be so present, safe from self-doubt. To not question the nature of love. In a world drowning in analysis, you are ignorant.

I envy you, Milena.