A Letter To Now's Love for Me
As I sit writing on this bench, cars pass me by, the trees watch, and my mind is stuck in a future I know won’t exist. Drops of rain fall randomly, and bring me back to the past so near yet a lifetime ago. I’m brought back to a memory of walking through the greek rain with you. Rain as we walk near ruins, the sound of rain as we lay in your bed enjoying our laziness. The comfort of memory comes and goes as cold drops of rain flow down my neck, chilling the heat of my desire.
Anna, you are what fills me with joy, but the short time in my days when I don’t see you is a suffering I cannot endure. The water flowing down these broken fingers of mine brings visions of the tears I will shed as I fly back into the Texas heat. That Texas furnace that will burn me until dust, scattering me upon Nothing’s canvas bound to flow with Change’s breath. Yet for these last days we have together I will be filled with joy and love.
Your eyes started it all. The moment we met I was frozen by your gaze. You brought chills through my bones, but my body thawed from a heat in my chest, a fire of desire. A desire unexpected but well accepted.
When I think about what it is I like about you, many qualities come to mind: Your strength, your mind, body, honesty, laugh, smile, eyes, lips, kiss… Yet even though I can sit here and think of all these qualities, none of them are my reason for loving you. None of these qualities is responsible for leaving a hole in this chest of mine. A hole that is only filled when I see you, hold you, feel you, taste you. There is no explanation or quality that you possess which has made me love you. Ever since the night we met I was filled with the hope of holding you, and now that I have held you in my arms I can’t seem to let go.
This love is one that depresses me, and I know that this feeling is a choice, one where I can choose to feel joy here in Greece, one where I must accept the finitude of my love for you in order to feel Joy’s embrace. I want to choose that joy, and I should, but I have reason not to. I wish to hold you by the sea in eternity, I do not wish to hold onto a memory, for my memories do not do justice to your beauty.
I wish to overcome the logic of this grey world, to have you be mine yet free, to reach out and grasp paradox, but this pipe-dream of mine has already lost to an idea of reality I cannot overcome with delusion. I already miss so much of you, even as I dream lying next to you. I miss your back in the morning, running my hand lightly over it, selfishly, to wake you up slowly. I miss sitting and eating with you silently, enjoying the food while I enjoy the view of you. I miss your small bed, pressing against your warm body to keep from falling off. I miss making love to you, in every way. The nights sleeping alone here knowing you are near turn me into something I do not want to be, an animal out of control, full of desire unquenchable, and I understand just how much wisdom I lack.
You are perfect. You tell me there is no such thing, but I’ll never believe you, or come close to understanding what you believe about yourself. I do not know your past, and I will not know your future, but when I hold you in my arms and kiss you, the world becomes clear. When I hear the birds chirping and open my eyes to your freckled cheeks, the light of a God I do not believe in cuts through my doubts, bringing me certainty, certainty that I love you, something that I wish I could think untrue, but this irrationality you bring to my soul makes me a fool, and a fool only for you.
J.A. 07-05-2025