(no subject)
Dear Jonathan Livingston Severson,
It's been eleven years. And for the last few of those, there's been a scab over what used to be a gaping wound. It's not healed yet, may not completely heal ever, but it's healing, slowly. But i still set this day aside, to grieve your loss and remember you.
I just went back through, actually, and reread all the letters I've written you, over the years. A couple of the years, early on, I didn't write you anything; but it's been a pretty consistent ritual. In some sense i've come to think of you as my better self, my Holy Guardian Angel, the voice in my head that i cannot bear to disappoint. I sometimes wonder if you'd be disappointed that i still miss you so terribly, after all this time. I don't think you would, though - you understood loss, and ceremony.
And i suspect that at least once in awhile, when you feel cold and dark and alone, you miss me, too.
I had a marvelous vacation, the last few days. I had as a houseguest someone I hadn't talked to in fifteen years, and have been talking to every day since the middle of June. (You'd remember him; he went to Rhodes.) There was cuddling, and sex, and movies, and wine, and talking until the wee hours of the morning. It was wonderful, and I am overall the happiest i've been since significantly before i moved. It's clear that he loves me, and that i love him, despite an incredibly short re-acquaintance.
He left today, though, and i cried. A lot. I don't know when i'll see him again, and i don't know exactly where i stand with him, and even if neither of those things were true i am terrible at watching people go. It's never, ever a thing that gets easier; and especially on this day, of all days, all the missing-of-people that i've ever done in my life blends together into a gaping abyss that i cannot possibly see over.
Tonight Will Be Fine (Leonard Cohen)
Sometimes I find I get to thinking of the past.
We swore to each other that our love would last.
You kept right on loving, but I went on a fast;
now I am too thin and your love is too vast.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
I choose the rooms that I live in with care,
the windows are small and the walls are bare.
There is only one bed and there's only one prayer;
I listen all night for your step on the stair.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
Oh, sometimes I see her undressing for me,
she's the soft naked lady love meant her to be
and she's moving her body so brave and so free.
If I've got to remember, that's a fine memory.
And I know from her eyes
and I know from her smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
Oh, my love, my dear one -- goodbye again, for another year. I will get through it; i have survived eleven previous years, and i will survive this one too. Not least because you live in my head as the voice of my best self; and not least because, through everything that's happened to me in those years, i have never stopped wishing i were the full moon shining off your Camaro's hood.
❧
It's been eleven years. And for the last few of those, there's been a scab over what used to be a gaping wound. It's not healed yet, may not completely heal ever, but it's healing, slowly. But i still set this day aside, to grieve your loss and remember you.
I just went back through, actually, and reread all the letters I've written you, over the years. A couple of the years, early on, I didn't write you anything; but it's been a pretty consistent ritual. In some sense i've come to think of you as my better self, my Holy Guardian Angel, the voice in my head that i cannot bear to disappoint. I sometimes wonder if you'd be disappointed that i still miss you so terribly, after all this time. I don't think you would, though - you understood loss, and ceremony.
And i suspect that at least once in awhile, when you feel cold and dark and alone, you miss me, too.
I had a marvelous vacation, the last few days. I had as a houseguest someone I hadn't talked to in fifteen years, and have been talking to every day since the middle of June. (You'd remember him; he went to Rhodes.) There was cuddling, and sex, and movies, and wine, and talking until the wee hours of the morning. It was wonderful, and I am overall the happiest i've been since significantly before i moved. It's clear that he loves me, and that i love him, despite an incredibly short re-acquaintance.
He left today, though, and i cried. A lot. I don't know when i'll see him again, and i don't know exactly where i stand with him, and even if neither of those things were true i am terrible at watching people go. It's never, ever a thing that gets easier; and especially on this day, of all days, all the missing-of-people that i've ever done in my life blends together into a gaping abyss that i cannot possibly see over.
Tonight Will Be Fine (Leonard Cohen)
Sometimes I find I get to thinking of the past.
We swore to each other that our love would last.
You kept right on loving, but I went on a fast;
now I am too thin and your love is too vast.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
I choose the rooms that I live in with care,
the windows are small and the walls are bare.
There is only one bed and there's only one prayer;
I listen all night for your step on the stair.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
Oh, sometimes I see her undressing for me,
she's the soft naked lady love meant her to be
and she's moving her body so brave and so free.
If I've got to remember, that's a fine memory.
And I know from her eyes
and I know from her smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
Oh, my love, my dear one -- goodbye again, for another year. I will get through it; i have survived eleven previous years, and i will survive this one too. Not least because you live in my head as the voice of my best self; and not least because, through everything that's happened to me in those years, i have never stopped wishing i were the full moon shining off your Camaro's hood.
❧