FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 762

I think you know how grateful I am. It could so easily have been different. A turn of the corner here, a small delay there, and the river of chaos that bumped us together would have swept us oblivious to destinations we can now only wonder about.

Our real fortune, of course, is that we both have what the other most wanted to find. Not missing parts but matching courage. The vision fearless.

Now we both laugh at the absurdity of those around us, at their ridiculous, ineffective levers of control. Together we have discovered the strength to reject all of their bloated ‘thou shalt not’ narratives, to see through the phoney divisions of class, gender and sexuality that those around us wished to have us accept. Have tried so hard to force down our throats. Only we don’t swallow.

Perhaps in a year or two they will be grinning triumphally saying ’I told you so’ but even if the grind and the differences do get on top of us we will have had the experience of today. We will have held out for something more than obedience and TVs. Than monochromatic suburban smallness. Than sticking to the party line and hating ourselves for it.

It sounds a trifle romantic, I know – but in your arms I have found stars hitherto unglimpsed. Reason for living scarcely permissible in the narrow, must have, status obsessed straits of work & spend, amuse & medicate.

Okay, so these fighting words may well come back to bite, but I will have loved you in the interim and known your love in return. For this, I shall forever give thanks. Because now that we are together we are scared of nothing – and I will never forget how good this feels.