FREE LOVE LETTERS

Category: THE BOOK OF LIBERTY

  • And in surrender, ecstasy.

    She can see – and so can he. There is no chance for denial now. Her heart is breaking at the sight of it. As though he has waited for her to yield to her love. From his shattered place on the ground he has now been raised by her tender attentions. Smiling out of…

  • A Shadow Cast By Light

    She wants to know. To know about the girl. He laughs quietly, almost to himself. Smiles a bent, wistful smile. The one I pretended to be? he asks her playfully. Or the one I remember? The one who made you write that way, Aurelia Zhou tells him, listening to his sputtering heart. The inexorably ticking…

  • No Ordinary Morning

    Cool grey light through a tall sash window. Sound of a busy street below. The chirping bustle of Frank and Alysa getting ready for another day at the shop. Just a plain ol’ morning. Like so many before and since. An otherwise unremarkable day. Except … The weight of history. The vacuum to follow. By…

  • Making beautiful circles

    Indy has her first boyfriend. I met him last night. At Mike’s house. He is eighteen. He has a car. And a winning smile. She looks at him with doe eyes. I hope she makes a better fist of it than I did. Because I see in her today all of the tremors of my…

  • For your kiss, a kingdom could fall

    He pretends to be impervious to her. Engaged but otherwise unaffected. Not at all in a state of deranged hunger. Yet beauty brooks no denial – nor reveres determination – and most games it wins. Erasmus is well aware of this. Beauty has beaten him senseless many times before. Thus, he is neither alarmed nor…

  • A Man & A Woman

    Why did you do it? she wants to know – and he senses her outrage. She is not the first, neither will she be the last; but he is well used to the idea of scandal now. Because it was better that way, he tells her. But it was a lie. What makes you say…

  • The Universal Equaliser

    I remember being annoyed. You wanting to photograph me with ten minutes to go. Amongst the ugly clutter of the departure lounge. “Something to remember you by,” you insisted, already adjusting your lense – framing me up. I ground my teeth, clamping down on my fury, preventing it from becoming petulant outburst – wondering if…

  • Scene From A Final Weekend

    On the elevated balcony – after the howling release of coupling – we took in the panorama as pleasant hormones raced around our bodies and the intimacy of lovers lowered our resistance. We had that conversation – the one we had to have. “Do you love me?” I asked, emboldened – somehow unafraid. You closed…

  • A Window Seat

    There is a window of joy in my life – on a wall in a city of despair. I look through it sometimes. I always see you there. King of my sorrows. Star of my light. I remember the moment when I knew. When I first saw the light shining through it. I opened it…

  • Or Was It Starvation?

    I got home. I showered. I masturbated. Screaming out: fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. I called the number you gave me. The receptionist put me through but the bells just rang hollow and I imagined an empty room – and the town you were out painting. I wrote you a letter. Can you remember…