Dear _,

It's been hard to write. You were always the muse.
I'm no longer Anonymous. Anonymous is no longer mine.

Once, he smashed my lamp. I heard the sparkle of cheap IKEA glass fanning out on my floor like a miniature Arctic Ocean. When I came back to my room, he had a broom in one hand and your mug in the other.

I told him he could break anything in my life, but not that mug.

I am bound, my dear _ . Not because I wish I could tell you how much _. Not because I , or that I miss when we __ , but by sterility, latex gloves, telegrams. I am bound by the distance and detachment that keeps us safe as we venture inside other humans, other hearts.

The only way to survive terminal love was to induce a coma. Sleep until fixed.  

At best I will dream of your laugh.

Put my heart on hold a moment,
while I pick up the other line...

... Are you there?

How do the vines of our secrets creep their way into the ears
of those we want most to protect?

It will never matter how I know, only that I know you are happy.

So for the love of truth if she makes you laugh I beg you to sing aloud- your joy is too contagious to ever tiptoe around. Not on my (closed) account. All I've ever wanted is to hear your spirit ring across this country.

Of course I love you, Bebe- Q.
(And I can say without doubt, I shall never have another Bebe-Q. What does that even mean?)

Of course I miss you.
I miss you like I would miss most of my major organs.
Painfully.

But if her light makes your heart photosynthesize so that your entire being blooms with life

-Please-

Be free. Let it grow.

The hardest gift I will ever give you is my blessing.

My love, I am letting you go.

Come to bed?

               -I'm not tired yet. But I'll come for a little while.

So begins the bedtime story I recite in my head.  You and me were the stars, the loveable protagonists character-foiled by the scars that always found a way to nose between us under the cover of darkness and love.  Like the family dog who is always welcome (even when sometimes it's not).

And although the story is worn so thoroughly it frays my cochlea with overuse of the thought, I still grow hot to see you beside me once again. Even though I know how it ends, that when my eyes close you'll be on your way again- when the morning comes, as sure as dawn, you'll be lying next to me.

Maybe nothing has changed,

and perhaps the mend sewn deep into the pages of memory is the hope that when my eyes slowly open

there you will be.

For always.

The End

On an L shaped couch on the eleventh floor
I spend these short days with my ghost, hosting tea-parties for silence
drinking espresso like a cure for hurt- I need a drug that's stronger than Love and bolder than Compliance-

-my brain has wrought violence upon itself as I tumble again and again into the abyss of affection, seeking the path but losing the direction. Perhaps when I called you, you detected the inflection of a woman who feels so absolutely that she can no longer discern...

and without careful reflection nobody can learn.

I was never good at playing for sport. I aim for hearts. Every day is Open Season, and my arrow will shoot true-
I'll be ****** if I cannot find something to love in you.

And I'm divided in two, no- a hundred and two, watching myselves like mirrors upon mirrors reflecting every motive, every spark, and every smudge that swings the pendulum from instinct to conscience. Showing the audience centre stage where the white knight swerves off-course to save any soul who's fallen off their horse.

Love will be the end of me.

Cupid, we need a divorce.