dear most lovely one,

Here I sit, bed ridden in sight of the setting sun. This weary mind is weathered from pain and grief and these features are spread too thin to see youthful man inside my heart. In this room of sterile whiteness, shadows grow into each other, Preying on my feeble time. Despair would have captured me long ago had it not your memory. I have thought of you every day since the day we met so long ago when we were but children. And until the breath ascends out of this wrinkled shell, you will be with me. My love, my friend, my other half.

It's been 42 years since you and I last spoke. And the time I have is so brief, I know we never will again. Please just know that my unquenchable heart will beat it's last moment in your hands. I gave it to you once and it has always been yours ever since. My sleep is around the bend and when I am returned to the earth and tides, I will finally be able to embrace you again, In the wind.

Goodnight my sweetest part.

End of the line for this silly wretch, his blood is too thick and his heart too big, for every passerby throws stones at it and laughs at the size like children taunting a wounded bird. He has reached the end of his pitiful rope, long over due in this cold world where we break each other hearts for sport and feel righteous while standing in the wreckage of one another. You who shamed the man back into a boy because you grew tired of his face in your pictures, should die a hundred deaths in a pit all alone for the sake of wisdom. Maybe you might do less harm in future lives to come.

Here writes the roots deep in the soil, wet and dark with not space to feel under the weight of our rotten, old weeping willow. The top limbs are old and covered in blood and shame. So long ago did they commit acts that turned our core black and withered us in state and soul. Tarnished is our trunk, for too much of us drank fire water and wailed at its younger parts about missed opportunities to grow. Over the ages, we've colored our rings with dark red and copper, making us knotted and stubborn, unable to sway in even the gentlest of breezes. For when we once stood straight and true, now we are but bent and broken, like a shadow upon the ground cast at night. Crushed under the heavy burden of ourselves.

Wind in my face, skateboard wheels careening toward my destination with a fervent pace, so many groceries on my mind. My music blaring within my ears, filling the world with some gift wrapped three minute long purpose for being. No one else is in my world as I roll along the concrete sides, just enjoy the beauty of the moment. Then tragedy strikes like a viper in the dark, the spot in my mind that I manifested with wood and wheels and speed, all set to a musical soundtrack is shattered with a single blow. Not a pebble or unseen ledge but you. You come into vision, my thief of heart and soul, my dreamtime tormentor, my love that won't or can't subside. Trailing behind you of course is whatever you've replaced me with, some superior person in appearance or attitude. As I roll ever nearer, all can do is imagine our perfect conversation, you know the one... That one makes you fall in love with me again. but as our bodies close in on each other, almost until I could grab you and kiss you with the supreme passion I still feel, my imagination melts back into the part of the brain that keeps me sad and all I do is make a fake smile in your direction give a half hearted waive and continue passed, trying not look back at you and the person beside.

The store I find, has an excellent selection of wine and spirits. I pick one, douse myself in it's forgetful qualities and sleep without dreams. For once leaving you out of where you should no longer reside.

I am but a dream, you are but a memory. I am flying high, you are roots in earth. Your love is a moment and mine is everlasting. You are an untied shoelace, I am double knotted. We once were a wonderful rotation, like the one our world makes now and again but now we are as magnets, forever pushing away from each other.

4am. Late night 7eleven run. Hat, coat, scarf, out the door. As soon as I exit the building the cold invigorates me, I sip on the night air and breath out the steam of life. I walk slow and steady despite the drink in me, mastered my balance long ago. No one and nothing is awake but me and the stars. And I relish in the world's absence. As I walk, the street lights reveal it's snowing, little gingerly particles flutter toward me like a dusty lamp shade when disturbed. Memories flood back to me, times when I was in  love and every snowflake that dropped before me seemed to bring life anew. I stare longingly at the sky with an appreciation that could never be described with mortal words. Only that fleeting gaze that stays with you forever if it is set upon you, etching itself in your heart.

Then I walked home…Back to earth.

Truest love,

We have been apart now longer than we were together. Strange as the time flies like a bird in the hardest wind, my heart still beats the rhythm of your name and my soul is but a broken vase without your hand held in mine. I swear to you that I have tried in honest to lose the longing that plagues my bones but my love for you persists even now. Like a river it flows onward and though its depth may change by the season, its nature is unending. I still keep your picture in my wallet not because it does some service or I bring my eyes about it often but rather that the deepest part of me will not permit its absence. My love is hard and true and nothing seems to persuade it from its purpose, not even me. I sleep more then I should now because my love remains only in my dreams and my world is made of what moves me, whether it be what all can see or just me.

I think of you often,

Gilberto