LOVE FOR BEGINNERS // 情書



August 20, 2009


My dearest,


I.

We make strange bedfellows. These are monsoon daydreams as we snuggle closer under the blankets, the pillows like firmaments of fortresses and we close ourselves from all the racket. The noise the city the traffic the sirens. Someone high and mighty is passing by again in his stained glass limousine escorted by patrolmen and they ride like they own the law. Babies are crying, being awoken by the grunt of their evil engines but they keep passing, they are the law they are above it all.

And we snuggle closer as you grumble about these small monsters we pay the price to take, a most monumental parliamentary mistake. And also that awful Australian client of yours who is so fastidious over every single detail and his rudeness which makes your poor colleagues shake and pale. And while I admire your client’s attention to perfection (it makes sense to me to do something right if we are to do it at all), my benediction is limited for it is my beloved that he hurts and I smile as you imagine his face slammed against a wall.

Such quiet visions of cruelty and violence from someone so pretty. You are awful, yes, but still oh so cute really.

II.

We make strange bedfellows. I had it first, a bout of gastritis, possibly from that Iced Coffee Jelly Vanilla Caffè Latte. Perhaps it’s time I give up caffeine for good. I had it in Starbucks, the one at the Borders Bookstore at The Curve, that place my best friend and I would nestle and slouch on the couch and read and bitch and gossip and stare at the people passing, cute ugly tall, and when there’s nothing left to do, we’d just stare at the wall. We love that place. I wonder if it’s not where we firmly understood that we were not silly soulmates or boyfriendgirlfriend or fuckbuddies on speed-dial on call — No, we were just the ones who stick together through it all.

And I love her the Diva despite her not making any sense, maybe because she makes no sense at all, but someone I can rely on not to catch me when I fall, but at least to arrive at the scene of the crime and wipe the blood off my scrapes and scold me happily all the time.

And it scares me cos you make me as happy as she does and more bloody so, oh so much more bloody so. And I do want to be your sillystupid soulmate, your boyfriendgirlfriend your fuckbuddy on speed on the dial all the while and it kills me it turns me crazy it makes me melt slowly when you softly softly call me “Dear” even if it’s to take out the trash or to shut the fuck up. It makes me want to hear that all day all year all the years all our years to come, yes, you make me that dumb, you make me succumb.

You get it next, you have food poisoning. And as you lose your appetite, as you run a slight fever and I cover you with the bedsheets and you rest then get up to vomit in the bathroom and I drive you to the clinic I tell myself this time I won’t accompany you inside, I won’t allow myself to get angry at the doctor if he/she is incompetent and don’t see the pain you’re in; don’t they dare simply go through the motions, don’t they care about you as much as I do? Well, they should they all very well should bloody should but here I am, not making any sense and not in a cute way either (how does my sweet Diva manage it?) and I understand I have to be absent to be present and I give you a checklist of questions to ask the doctor, firmly believing you’d ask maybe two out of ten and I know you won’t take the injection if offered when it could make you better so much faster but I relent.

I sit outside and let you go alone. I let go.

III.

We make strange bedfellows. We snuggle together, back from the clinic, the clinics, both sick and sorry in our bed. I’m no longer sure of what we’re talking about but I tease you, hey when we get better we can make love again get randy and give the neighbours something to shout about. You pinch my nose and call me a shameless horny slut and then we snuggle closer our warmth is each other, nose against nose, heart to beating heart and with our hands clasped together, this strange fragile forever for better or for worse, this is who we are, this is us.


Yours, ever and always.




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