FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 454

If the roles were reversed I would most likely be nowhere near as gracious or as strong as you – for I know what it is to bleed and to long for that which will never return. I remember all too well how it feels to stand beside the one you love and have them not love you back; and although I will not apologise for no longer loving you as you wish, I will say sorry for my part in the slow disintegration of us.

We both know how easy it is to say that tired, trite line – let’s just be friends – and how awful it is to be that friend. To that end I promise you this: my quiet disappearance. I shall not inflict my egotistical guilt on you in the form of so-called friendship – not if it makes things worse for you. Not if it is as hard for you as it once was for me.

Perhaps, after all, lovers are best housed in memory – free from further taint or temptation. Where fresh wounds cannot be so easily inflicted. I will retire into this space if you so wish it. Keep my distance. Keep my mouth shut. You only have to say.

Yet if you can bear the cooler fractions of what you it is desire, these I will gladly give. That we may honour the beauty that remains and salvage from our inevitable human frailty the nobler part of love’s much tarnished glory.

I cannot offer you everything but what I have to give I shall give fully – not as duty or self-seeking recompense but as treasure newly found. If you will take these tiny jewels, I will dig them from the earth to lay them at your feet.

Or I will retreat and leave you in peace.