18. Letter #1. (2010)

My dear,

I saw you walking tonight in your long grey pea coat. You looked intent, and although the compulsion was almost too strong to subdue, I chose to not make my presence known. It hadn’t been a full minute that you had been off my mind prior to you walking around the flowered corner merely 40 yards from where I first set eyes on you some years ago.

For as much as has changed, the rudiments of my feelings for you, and also the novelty of an unplanned, inadvertent sighting remain as sharp and clear as the first time we ever spoke.
I wanted more than I can describe to call to you; to watch your eyes light as I beckoned to you from across the street, and to feel the temperature change climb through my entire body as you smiled at me from arms length. But I am alive in reality, and burdened by it, and know that it would have struck my want down in favor of its own.

The regret I feel has roots so deep within me no amount of new growth will loosen their hold.
I watched you walk until my eyes went crossed and you disappeared, all the while holding my fists tight so the last of my sanity didn’t slip through my fingers.

Yours,