FREE LOVE LETTERS

Author: Paul Ransom

  • Love letter # 506

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    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

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    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

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    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,…

  • Love letter # 695

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in ,

    There is no control; at most, precious little. Moments like this seem to emerge, whole, shining, from the greater whole. Now there is disruption. A smooth trajectory interrupted. Yours was the merest incursion. The fraction it took. A breeze, rattling doors. New sounds in the house. This morning I woke with the thought, the half-dreamt…

  • Love letter # 376

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    I want to take you home, so that we can remove our masks. Here, we are actors. Away from this noise, we will speak truly once more. Now, they endeavour to infect us, by accident or design. Later, we shall cure ourselves of the ubiquitous malady with the honesty of presence and the revelation of…

  • Love letter # 456

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    The beauty of it is subtle. Light slowly creeping into a room. Scent of a flower rising in the air. A gradual emergence of change, of anticipation. There’s a Japanese word – fuubutsushi – look it up; it describes how I feel now that you are on the scene. It is the first evocation, unexpected…

  • Love letter # 616

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in ,

    “I’m not opposed.” you said. How was I meant to proceed after that? Sure, it was consent, an allowance, but it wasn’t even lust, let alone love. I had courted you, and in the process my desire had deepened beyond affection and into genuine care. And then…a first kiss. My body and heart on fire.…

  • I saw you look at stars

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in ,

    It was easy to see. You in your beautiful dress. Him sitting opposite, perhaps not noticing. On his phone. Your head turned slightly to the side, looking elsewhere. Maybe it was nothing. Could have been anything. What would I know? Then you saw me looking. You held my gaze long enough. A wave came over…

  • My ten year love letter to no one

    My ten year love letter to no one

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in

    The art of the billet-doux is not dead (and neither am I)          You may well ask – with some justification, I might add – why anyone would dedicate themselves to the writing of over 600 love letters across a ten year period without sending any of them. You may also wonder for whom these unmailed…

  • Love letter # 683

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    by

    Paul Ransom
    in ,

    I remember everything. It has never left me. The sense of you nearby. I hear the sound of your footsteps; they echo in the valley of my love. I feel your body’s warmth, like the humid cloak of hot afternoons, wrapped around me. I reach into space. The air is your fingertips. I move in…