Love Letters

November 05

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for The Times Online’s series of love letters by famous writers/musicians. I did it on a whim, but finding sigh-inducing notes from the likes of Margaret Atwood in your inbox (inevitably I’d forget they were coming, so when they showed up they were a nice surprise) was such a pick-me-up that I’ve decided this should become an institution. Love letters from strangers. It’s a great idea.

They inspired me to dig up this piece, which I wrote while reading some of the Gnostic Gospels and thinking about apostolic love. I doubt it will end up in anything--it wasn’t inspired by and doesn’t relate to anything else I’m writing--so I’m putting it here for you-all. If you’ve got a blog, write a love letter of your own and post a link in the comments.

It goes on like a song born of words but not composed by them, echoing in my head: I have never for a moment stopped loving you. Foresight is only a superdeveloped ability to isolate probability sets; intuition unclouded by the irrational. I have moments of that kind of clarity—rare moments. If we can remember the past we can member the future. There came a point at which I knew you would ask me to do something that would cause you to despise me. I saw the exact shape that spite would take—you are the kind of person who can amputate an intimacy like a frostbitten limb, and I knew that when I fell in love with you. I knew a lot of things. I know less now.

From time to time I go back and read the letters I should not have kept. I don’t need to be reminded of why I carry you with me; the reasons are present enough in the tips of my fingers. No, I read to be closer to you—you inhabit your words perfectly, and though you do not love me now, you loved me once, and when I read what you wrote to me then you are as alive and present as you were when the sentences were fresh. You were a beautiful rage, preternaturally focused, as sharp as wind on a cloudless day in winter, a high noon of ice. I could only love you: I am predisposed to intoxication, and you are predisposed to intoxicate. But even for me, I who am always in love, I who fall in love with passerby on the street, you were particularly undeniable.

You were wrong to ask what you asked of me. You did and said things I thought were cruel, yes. You ran from things I thought you should have confronted, yes. But even in those moments I wanted only to comfort you—I told you as much, yet you sent me out among your enemies. And I went. I have always done what you’ve asked me to do. I knew as I left that we had failed each other: in sending me you had trivialized my love, and in going, I trivialized yours. My obedience was simply an unwillingness to stay when you didn’t want me—it was, in other words, pride. A humbler, stronger person might have resisted; stuck to your side and endured your anger. But I went, and you did not ask me to come back until it was too late. By then we had curdled into doubt, jealousy and suspicion. Anything we make now will be from mended parts. And so I read the letters I should not have kept, and remember.

But I love you. Now, here. Mended or not, remembered, membered, forgotten, I love you. I want to use the old cliché and say nothing else matters, but of course that’s not true. Lots of inconvenient things matter. They will not stop mattering because I’ve written this. Still, you should know that it’s 2AM and I’m awake with your ghost. A mere princely absence, but to me, precious.