FREE LOVE LETTERS

Author: Paul Ransom

  • Love letter # 720

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    I desire you now as I did not before. I desire you now as I will not again. My desire changes each time you move. For as you move, so are you changed.

  • A summer break-up scene

    A summer break-up scene

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXTRACT FROM OUR RECENTLY PUBLISHED NOVEL THE LAST SUMMER OF HAIR. Now that he is back in town, he turns his attention to practicalities. He makes appointments – agent, work, accountant – and steels himself for the inevitable reunion with Aneetha Jharavindra. They agree to meet in the city. At a…

  • Love letter # 473

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in ,

    However much I would like to talk to you, I am sabotaged. Perhaps it is shallow and silly to admit, but I am befuddled by your form and flow. Words catch and break. Mature demeanour disintegrates. I get sweaty. It’s terrible. The irony of your beauty is that you will most likely never see me.…

  • Love letter # 671

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    You nearly had me fooled. Believing it was me. Then I saw you do the same with others. The smile, the posture, the close attention. Yet I shall not curse you. My stumbling is my imbalance. You are merely utilising the advantages given to you by nature. I would do the same if I were…

  • Love letter # 835

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    How many roads have I travelled in search of belief? Schools of thought, ancient philosophers, the many isms and ideologies; these have been my citadels of faith. All have crumbled. Their gods are not merely slain but revealed to be little more than idols of fantasy. Yet I have gladly set these relics aside and…

  • Love letter # 656

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    What if you are happier elsewhere? What if this is not working for you? Would I hold on? Would there even be a point to that? If I saw that look in your eye – that gazing into the distance of another – would I love you enough not to close mine? I will not…

  • For my vanished Valentines

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in ,

    You. All of you. Seeping through cracks in time. Splinters in splintered memory. Each of you left behind, embraced now by distance; from which I may regard, with detached perspective, the folly of erstwhile excess and the dry ache of ancient deprivation. What was I thinking? The unkept promises, the self-pitying dramas, the cruel indecisions.…

  • Love letter # 506

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    What do you say when someone notices that you keep looking away? I thought about lying. Instead, I just said, “Because it’s hard to look at you.” What is it about the body – its presence, its lines, its promise – that obliterates other niceties? I pushed the plate aside. “Not hungry?” you asked, and…

  • Love letter # 482

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    Once we sang along. We were amazing. We did amazing things. Did we ever believe it, or did we always know? Look now in the mirror, my love…there is the truth of us. In cold glass. Our ordinary outcome. We said a lot of things. They did not come to pass. Promises we made; unkept.…

  • On observing the brutality of time

    —

    by

    Paul Ransom
    in ,

    A non-descript morning. Solo coffee, people watching. No hint of rupture. And then it happens. Two strangers. Him old, her young, side by side at the counter. I see him look at her. She does not flinch. Does not notice. He bows his head. I sense what he senses. The ocean. He scuffs along, elderly,…