Euphoria is something most of us are lucky enough to experience. It has certainly made us a little crazy sometimes, as the ten letters below make plain. Though there is a ‘spiritual’ bent to some of them, they are all rooted in humanity.

Love letter # 7

… and in a blinding, beautiful flash – you.

You have changed me. Perhaps you did not mean to – but you have. Not that I was bad before – just a fool who knew nothing. Now at least I am a fool who knows you. Everything is clear now – if a little raw.

The light is sharp sometimes. The heights are airless. And flying always contains the lure of falling. But those who will not fly are grounded. They have the dirt and nothing more. Even if I am left with only the memory of you it will be a good deal more than old rock. For sure, it will be diamonds.

Love letter # 33

The lovers are the kings, the lonely are the cherished, the forgotten are the exalted. And the beggars shall live in the palace; and the mighty dwell amongst the ashes. And then the angels will walk with the fallen – the proof being you.

I do not know why you are down here with me – but you are – and I am uplifted. My dirty heart is clean in your hands; my rusted chains are gold. These rags; they are silk. This cell; it is liberty. And out of this silence; song.

When there is love in the world, hunger itself is plenty and the darkness is strewn with light. Where love makes its house, there are no slaves. And then, even the broken will see beauty once more – the proof being me.

Love letter # 79

Before you, I existed in complete and utter selfishness. For a moment, it seemed like I was alive. But life is more than feeding – it’s giving. And what is it you give to me? Permission to love.

You are the cloud that says rain. You are the ocean that says swim. You are the song being sung. I am the dancer flying round the room.

Before you, my heart was a mere valve. Now it is a fountain. Now it is a star pouring light. Everything has changed – and I would not have it any other way.

The day is a temple, the night is a shrine. All this because I give to you – because it flows through me. I am not the keeper of love – only its humble typist. You are the bell, I am the ringing. Together we herald the dawn.

Love letter # 131

I came down in the rain to make this garden bloom for you. I swam across the sea to walk in this desert with you. I fell from the sky to stand beside you in the mountain air. I travelled through the terrors of time to be here now. Whatever dream I woke from, you were what I found.

Did I have reason? Maybe. I don’t know anymore. It matters not; because now you are here.

You hold my breath, you open my eyes, you are like the fire in my blood. In the moment when I am overwhelmed by you I am uplifted. I surrender to be free. I crawl to be exalted. If there is a temple, it is this. It is the kiss you give me. You have made dust out of my kingdom, stones out of my glory. You took my conceit and made it into love.

Once there was a tower – now there is a song. I came back from the dark to live in your light. I threw out the jewels to live in your treasure. And there is nothing so simple as this. Just you…and the air we both breath. You might whisper – but I will always hear it.

Love letter # 229

Though we may dream of it, I think we all eventually come to accept that there is no perfection in these things. No one can fulfil us completely. Indeed, those we love most often create disappointment.

I realise that this is your experience – and of course it is mine too. This is why you are holding me at bay. For I am just another suitor – full of promises and hunger – hankering after your body and your affection. Just the latest in a line stretching back to your teenage years. Nothing to mark me out from a history of botched and abusive romance.

I cannot fight your bruises – nor upend your memory. Neither will I offer you eternity or paradise, for these are not in my power to make yours. All I can bring to you is the flower that is blooming in my soul. The exhilaration in my blood whenever you are near to me. The tenderness that overwhelms me when you smile.

Perhaps you have heard such declarations before and found them wanting. You may even think them sophistry – a trick to unwind you. Yet if you could know what was in my heart – hear this song I sing for you – all doubt would be erased. You would see that what little I have I am willing to give freely to you. All the love I can muster. Every ounce of my feeble treasure. Nothing kept hidden. And only the light shining – pure and cleansing – like renewal.

Love letter # 287

When I reach the final turn, as I know I must, I will do so having known what it is to speed blindly into the corners. And I will arrive with the scent of your kiss on my lips. For this, of all my earthly treasures, I shall yield up last.

Love letter # 379

For I have walked the line between light and dark, and dwelled in the house without name. This I did for the love of you.

Though I have wandered far from home, and sailed without the promise of harbour, I have journeyed for the succour of your love. I may thirst and hunger still, and shiver in a blackness that stretches beyond night, yet I am upheld by the breath of your name.

You may live at the furthest reaches of desire, and I may be in the exile of distance, yet there is no desert not crossed by the vaulting of light. I look through the clouds, see beyond the intervening hills, gaze across the sea; and though in one moment I am blind, in the next I see nought but you.

Love letter # 435

You passed me on the stairs and, over shoulders, with half turns, our eyes locked. I spied you in the corner of a room, your thoughts in clouds, looking as though you knew. I watched you as you walked – and as you drew near. We very nearly brushed against each other. Like me, you were holding your breath. Now you sit beside me. Now the silence is ours.

There is a world out there, blurring by beyond the plane of a window, this clouded canvas upon which we now draw our fingertip shapes in condensation. Your graceful distance, my humble presence. Your gorgeous melancholy, my pilgrim adoration. Your shimmering solitude, my lonesome prayer.

We hover in a kind of absence, dance to a song without form. Ours is the realm without border, the house without walls. We live nowhere. Claim nothing. Do not yield to the stricture of names. You and I are not even you and I; for now we are in the melted space, not even space.

We are the paradox of two and one and three – the trinity that adds up to nothing. The emptiness that contains all things. The dark eye, beholder of flooding light. I wonder now – indeed I have already forgotten – how it was I lived without you.

Love letter # 438

I came into being with your song in my soul. I walked so as to trace your footsteps. I spoke so as to know your voice. I am naked, such that I might feel your skin. I breath to have you inside me. I weep, in order that I might drink from your well. And I shall soon sleep…that I may be returned to you.

Love letter # 471

They don’t know – but we do. That’s what marks us out from them.

They respond to the truth with pacification, denial and judgement. And worse – advice. What we have they can only guess at. It’s why they think we’re strange. Cast their sideways glances.

Yet what they may never work out is that we can tell – and that now we have found one another we are immune. In fact, we are not even surprised anymore. We just send little signs across the ether – just to make sure we’re on the same page. Which we always are.

Everyone sees that we’re together but not how we’re together. In this way, our public love is really secret. The source of our unity beyond the standard conventions and corruptions. It’s not that we’re superior. Just that we know. That we have felt. And that we are no longer afraid. Of anything. Least of all them.

Love letter # 1418

Now the distance uncrossable. Here the worthless keepsakes, dusted with the film of years. Now the vastness of time. This the deep quiet that separates us. These the gestures, the thousand follies. This the going through the motions. I the act. Everything ritual. Take a step, then another. Smile. Be nice. Pretend. Forgive them their trespasses. Try not to acknowledge the undeniable fact.

Now that I have been to the edge of you, seen the shadows thrown by your shining, beheld the awesome emptiness your eye describes, heard the silence that is the beauty of your song – I walk amongst this clutter of noise and ceremony as a stranger. Here, but not here. Out in the immensity with you. In the realm of the infinite nothing. In the ecstasy of your completeness. How I could disappear with you, my love. How I could disappear.