FREE LOVE LETTERS

Author: Paul Ransom

  • Unnoticed

    Unnoticed

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    He used to have a life. Wife. But it wasn’t good enough. He’d lay in bed next to her wondering about other possibilities. Looking over the fence. She’s gone now, and so has he. Gone off the rails. Gone to pot. Smoking every day. Getting wasted and rolling round the city on countless little sorties.…

  • The season of bare shoulders

    The season of bare shoulders

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    Isabelle remembers when he used to look like that, when the sight of his chest made her draw breath deeply, like drinking, and her hunger sighed in her, ancient and strong. There was a time when Elliot could not see past her, when the mere whisper of her skin deafened him to everything else, and…

  • Love letter # 522

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    Last night, dreaming, I was in your arms. I felt the satin warmth of you. Your pressing solidity. This morning, awake, I wonder which is closer to truth. Conscious distance or REM embrace? When you return this afternoon, how shall I meet your eye? What, if anything, shall I see in your gaze? Do I…

  • A distance not measured in miles

    A distance not measured in miles

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    Is it a thousand miles? I could drive there in a day and a half but still it would not bring us any closer. The space between us is measured in silence these days. Every day I read the weather forecast for the far-flung town you now call home, yet no matter how I try…

  • They were the darlings of heaven

    They were the darlings of heaven

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    They were the darlings of heaven. Van and Cecilia. He was beautiful. God, how I loved him. But she…she was the angel of songs. Like crystal. Every heart was glass around her. Mine especially. Cecilia smashed me almost every day, cut me up with the trinkets of her affection. Her smile, her kiss, like a…

  • Secondary highways

    Secondary highways

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    The guy I think I’ve fallen for is out there, miles from here on one of a thousand impossible back roads. W.O.W. William Oliver Weston.  His long dead parents mustn’t have thought too hard about acronyming their child. He hates it. Calls himself Willo instead; but he spells it without the second ‘w’ because he…

  • Queen of the four vignettes

    Queen of the four vignettes

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    She is a blurred Madonna, hovering like smoke in slanted light. Has she come to save me? he wonders. Is this the end? He is in bed, an old man with photographs he can no longer make out. He is sitting, propped up in the late afternoon, when she first appears. He sees well enough…

  • Seven days between

    Seven days between

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    “He’s Brandoesque.” This is what Farud’s wife is saying about the guy in the jeans and the red t-shirt; the one who has just walked into the restaurant and made the ladies gasp. Farud looks him up and down and wonders what it would feel like to be so effortlessly charismatic. Though handsome enough himself,…

  • The man with the same name

    The man with the same name

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    I keep my ex-lover’s secret; safe as the house we once shared. On her side of the bed, another sates the curiosity I now regret. Not her fault. Mine. Did I start it? Maybe, maybe not. I had known for years that it would come to this; sitting next to him, knowing she was marking…

  • Letter to the passser-by

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    You caught me looking. I can imagine your reaction. Dirty old man! I will not undress for your gaze. Your sneer left a barb in me. It smarts; yet is not a wound. More like a bruise on the world. I did not see an object, nor play a scene in my head. Instead, I…