March 25th 1927

Dearest Love,

I sincerely hope this writing finds its way to you in your next lifetime, and if it — or even I — shan’t find you, then believe this be my final goodbye.

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I know now what i didn’t before, that you… you blessed soul, fallen from the skies as my angel on Earth, were different — different from the others. You were gentle and kind. You radiated a sort of… deep beauty and essence — yes — an essence that smelled so sweet, i could hardly keep myself away from it. And even now, locked up in this bedroom, well within my parents grasp, i find myself daydreaming, being whisked away by your strength and your courage. This paracosm i am living in, crammed within this tiny space i am forced to call home, is far from any mortal’s imagination. I feel i’m living my wildest dreams just thinking about you, and i now feel a breeze in this room, as though the four walls are breaking away and i am being freed from this travesty, ready to fall into your arms again. And although we were just 16, our love will live inside me for eternity.

I’m imagining you smiling, and me looking up into your chocolate-brown eyes that i’m sure have a whole world within them, and i wish i could venture in, never to return. I will always hope that you one day read this and come back to me. But, My Love, you have travelled so far down into the Earth by now that even a worm or a mole couldn’t reach you, not even if you were filled with grubs and nutrients and everything a creature needs, not even if you were a perfect piece of gold that miners were digging. It has been years since you have seen the sun. It misses you, i’m sure of it. It has not seen my face either since you passed, and i can see in my cracked mirror the whiteness sprawled across my face, like chalk or milled flour.

You creep into any story i read now, sometimes as a mere background character, or sometimes i see your face on the page, and run my delicate hands along the spine of the book and brush over the pages. Oh — i know you love my side stories and random respects, so i thought i’d also let you know that I recently picked up a book labeled ‘My beautiful wife’ that i found wedged at the back of my wardrobe, under a pile of father’s old work ties and my shredded school notes. It was dated back so far i was shocked its bones were not broken and its skin kept intact, but i knew the handwriting. It was similar to my father’s, but had that ‘je ne sais quoi’ to it. It had to have been my late grandfather’s!

I read it cover to cover, time and time again, until my eyes went sore and my fingers bled from the paper cuts. It was a short story, however lengthened by ink calligraphy illustrations of roses and tulips, and a singular repetitive female face, that one could suggest was of the narrator’s wife. His descriptions of her were so vivid that i imagined myself meeting her, as if she hadn’t died all those years before i was born.

I related so much to the story that even now tears are forming in my sunken eyes, as it reminded me of us. You and me. I loved and i lost, and my grandfather did the same. What a wicked place our world is, what a cruel, cruel time to live. That is why i’m a poet, a writer, a reader, even if i am just a woman. I’ve discovered so much about the world without having stepped one foot outside… that is… since the beacon of light in my life had been switched off…since you left. My grandfather’s book, beside every drawing of flower or face, was filled with poetry. Each poem linked together to form the story that was their love story, how my grandfather found his true love, and how he lost her so suddenly, just as i lost you.

I hope to be able to find you, just as my grandfather will find his ‘beautiful wife’ once again, in the land up above where songs are sung and new life is begun, and we can live forever together… just as one.

Goodbye,

My Love