FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 217

In the beautiful madness of desire it is easy to forget the other. It is our want that is foremost. The space that longs for an end to emptiness. This is the blindness of hunger – the trap into which I have lately fallen. Led by the combined gravitational pull of your loveliness and my craving.

So when you asked me to step back I curled into a ball of remorse. Of self-protective self-regard. Much as wounded animals do. Burnt and a little bitter – as though righteous anger might salve my broken pride and aching heart.

All of it selfish. All of it not taking you into account. Yet I claim to love you. It is my badge. How then, I wonder, can such contrary feelings be squared? The truth is, they cannot.

Therefore, I will do my lachrymose hurting as privately as possible – and my loving as generously as I am able. For sure I will be imperfect in this endeavour, because I have no magic pill to make me bright and shiny when I feel all bloodied and bruised.

I accept that there is a level of choice in all this. Partly I want the drama – it is strangely validating – but equally I believe that none of us can live in denial of how we truly feel. Our modern desire for self-development will never overpower the glorious distempers brought on by skin and fire.

Because of this I feel humble enough to offer you gratitude and apology without agenda. I will still love you stupidly – wake up to the sound of your name in my bleary thoughts – but I shall no longer press my ardour or my appetite upon you. I will stand behind the line you have drawn and do everything in my power to turn my wishing into giving