And how exactly does a love letter begin?
I think it must start long before
my darling, my dearest, my love
It starts in the morning, always.
It starts with awakening. And it starts with a moment of beauty.
Today is a grey day, no less beautiful for the cloud cover.
My shoulder is pinched, though no less beautiful for the pain.
My lover is perfect– last night as I held him
I realized,
with something like aching and something like awe,
the profound wish in my heart for his every happiness,
victory, and success.
I wished wildly that he would never be hurt,
never grow sick.
And then I had a flash, a sort of waking dream, that once set in motion could not be unseen, stopped or brushed aside– it was him on the train tracks, his form heavy, cold and limp in a sort of terrible parody of the damsel so easily plucked from distress. I pounded on his solid chest, and cried until all that was left was the heartbreaking effort of not being able to move him from the path of the oncoming train. I felt the scream rise from my gut and jerk through my limbs as I chose to throw my body from his, and he
exploded in a burst of blood and light.
This is the type of horror that love imagines.
There is a wisdom that says I have been everything to you, both intimate and strange, throughout the expansive multiverses of time and space—
I smile at these fantasy memories of us: myself your lover, your oldest friend, your child’s mother, your pretty bride, your teacher, your beloved parent, your rescuer, your refuge, your guide. I sweep more quickly past the others: your bully, your tormentor, your killer—
our eyes have met across every possible circumstance.
I think we all know the awful contemplation of losing someone over and over, and the pain that is both intuitive and immediate as we reach out again and again.
It might be possible we were born wishing for one another.
By now you seem so familiar it’s easy to imagine with you my Love,
the lifetimes we’ve spent making vows
and there is a note of electricity in your voice, the prickling of supernatural truth– like the one we feel whispering love spells for the first time, or as the drum beat quickens and the brass begins to blare–
when you tell me,
“I finally found you again. It took so long this time.”
There is a beautiful need in the way you say
I want you,
I want you,
I want to keep you, and take care of you.
It makes me understand the preciousness of the time we have left together.
It breaks my heart, and fills it with love.
