Unrequited Love’s Boldest Letter

Dear M,

If I have shown restraint it has been only out of a belief that you are the type of man who could never love a wild woman. And so I may have sublimated my natural urges for a modicum of disgrace, which does not fit a person of my caliber. In truth, I know myself to have a fiercely loyal and passionate heart, a thing in stark contrast to your stated “inability to love”. I am more than capable of loving, deeply, another human being. I have done it many times and in many ways. I have settled for love of you in the unrequited variety because I believe in and practice unconditional love, which requires no encouragement to grow. And I have turned over to this end exactly two years of my life.

I have opened up and swallowed the hardship of the last 10 months with a sincere hope for your recovery. I have not lost faith in your resilience and determination. I have however, been unable to detect even a shred of concern from you for my welfare. As of course, I have been trained to understand, the principle stress of your life must be for your own sobriety and that come hell or high waters you must stand your ground against any who would threaten such success. And so I have withdrawn, wounded but waiting, for any sign that a plateau had been reached on your end, and for an invitation to join you in a happy, loving relationship. There are times in my life when I have wanted a companion and you have not been there. And so I have spent so much time alone, in the fury of my isolation, because I could not imagine being with anyone else while my heart is tied to you.

My own naivete mocks me at times, but in similar circumstances there are few who would not fall into such a fallacious fantasy. If I have been pathetic in my wanting there is no shame for me, only the humiliation of having again guessed wrongly at the intentions and feelings of the object of my attentions and desire. If you feel no compassion, no obligation towards me then for heaven’s sake let me know of it!

Let me know that what I am holding onto in my heart and in my head is not real, that my make-believing abilities have carried me away from truth! Let me know so that I will not sit day after day expecting that eventually you will come back to me. Because if you do not intend it, if you do not want me then please pity me one last time and let me know, so that I can take the best of our time together for nostalgia and move on with my life.

May God’s Peace Protect You,
R

Thousand Things That Won’t Work

Fretting all night outside the walls like waking up scratching -

the itch – is on the inside;

And rollers on the heels of our feet

take us headlong into the crowd at Carnival.

She chooses not to turn up her hem at the beach

but to abandon dry, stationary things for the wild, wet mother

and be carried away once and forever by an unknown current

And who knows what hedonism is really or if pleasure may be

sustained or only touched triumphantly through a moment

hunted again and again

like the witches of days not so long gone -

redeemed only when they do not float

so their deaths take them as proof of rancid idiocy