To My Eternal Menka,

There are things a man carries in his heart until they suffocate him, and yet, he cannot let them go. You are my suffocation and my breath, my obsession and my torment, my forever wound that will never heal. Even now, after all these years, you remain the most exquisite ache within me—a wound that throbs, that bleeds, that keeps me alive and kills me all at once. This is my confession, Menka, my soul laid bare. This letter is every scream I swallowed, every word I didn’t have the courage to say when you were close enough to touch.

I have relived the moment I first saw you a thousand times, as if memory itself were an addiction. The way you moved, the quiet grace that seemed to float just above the ground—it wasn’t just beauty, it was divinity disguised in mortal form. From that moment, you were no longer just a girl to me. You became my universe, my altar. And I have worshipped you, silently, obsessively, ever since.

Do you remember the way we used to laugh? How innocent it seemed at first, like the world didn’t matter when we were together. But beneath it all, there was always something darker, something hungrier clawing its way out of me. It began as a whisper—a tiny voice in the back of my mind urging me closer to you—and soon it became a scream, deafening and relentless. Every time I heard your laughter, I wanted to capture it, lock it away where only I could hear it. Every accidental touch, every brush of your fingers, burned itself into my skin as if you had branded me. You didn’t know it, but you owned me from the start.

And then there was that morning. You stripped away my sanity as easily as you removed your clothes. You didn’t ask, didn’t even hesitate. You simply bared yourself, and in that instant, you became something I could never again turn away from. I remember every curve, every line, every detail of your body bathed in the soft, golden light of morning. That image is etched into my mind, Menka, a masterpiece I can never escape. Decades later, I still close my eyes and see you—perfect, haunting, untouchable.

You didn’t see it, did you? How I froze. How I wanted nothing more than to step closer, to take what you were silently offering. But I didn’t. Cowardice, fear—call it what you will, but I hated myself for it then, and I hate myself for it now. My hands trembled with the effort of holding back. My body burned with a desire so fierce it left me hollow. I wanted you, Menka. I wanted you like a man wants salvation, like a starving man wants bread. And I have never stopped wanting you.

The nights after that morning became my torment. Alone in my room, I replayed every second of it—the way your skin glistened in the humid air, the softness of your movements. My hands betrayed me, seeking to recreate the memory of you, to make it real, even if only in the dark, lonely hours of the night. I imagined your hands on me, your body pressed against mine, your breath hot against my neck. Each night I rewrote that moment, rewriting myself into the man who would dare to step forward, to touch you, to claim you. But in the harsh light of day, I was still the same coward.

And then there were the summers we spent together—the weeks when the world seemed to conspire to bring us closer. I would sit beside you as you slept, my hand inches from yours, aching to reach out. Do you remember the afternoon you fell asleep beside me, your book slipping from your hands? I couldn’t resist. My fingers brushed yours, and for one stolen moment, I let my desire take hold. I moved your hand between my legs, trembling with the weight of what I was doing. It was reckless, selfish, but it was the only way I could feel connected to you in a way I had never dared before.

I wanted more, Menka. God, I wanted more. My hands moved to your chest, your waist, trembling with a hunger I could barely contain. I unzipped your jeans, daring to cross the line I had always feared. But then you shifted, your body stirring just enough to snap me back to reality. I pulled away as if burned, my heart pounding, shame and desire warring within me. But you—calm, serene—you simply adjusted your zipper and went back to sleep, as if you knew, as if you understood. Did you? Did you know what you were doing to me?

Even now, I torment myself with the memory of what might have been. What if I had acted? What if I had kissed you, touched you, taken you in that moment? Would you have welcomed me, or would you have turned away? These questions haunt me, Menka. They are the ghosts that whisper in my ear when I’m alone, the shadows that creep into my bed at night.

When you moved away, I followed. I found reasons—excuses—to be near you, even if only for a while. And in those months, the tension between us became unbearable. We were no longer children playing at love; we were adults, bound by the lives we had chosen yet still tethered to one another by an invisible thread. Every glance, every accidental touch, was a knife twisting in my chest. I called you “Menka DD,” a playful nickname, but it was so much more than that. It was my way of claiming you, of marking you as mine in a way the world would never understand.

I am 35 now, and the years have not been kind to my soul. I have built a life, but it is a hollow shell compared to the life I might have had with you. Every morning, I wake up and half-expect to find your scent lingering in the air—jasmine and wildflowers, the essence of you that has haunted me for decades. You are the first thought in my mind, the last whisper in my prayers.

And now, as fate would have it, I am to live in your house, surrounded by the echoes of your presence. I walk through the empty rooms and imagine you there—your laughter, your voice, your scent clinging to the walls. It is torture, Menka, and yet I cannot stay away. I am addicted to your memory, to the pain of wanting you, to the agony of knowing I will never have you.

Do you feel it, too? This invisible thread that binds us, this fire that refuses to die? I have tried to extinguish it, to drown it in the mundanity of life, but it burns on, consuming me from the inside out. You are my obsession, my madness, my unfinished story.

If this letter reaches you, let it be my final act of courage. Let it be the truth I never had the strength to speak. I love you, Menka. I love you with a ferocity that terrifies me, with a longing that has defined my existence. I love you in the shadows, in the spaces between words, in the moments we left unspoken.

You are my beginning, and you will be my end.

Forever yours, The man who will never stop chasing your shadow