My Dearest,

In lieu of awaiting despondently your next correspondence (which, I have finally convinced myself, may never come), I write to you here, with all of the sincerity and forthrightness I can muster. I have spent quiet hours pondering your statement regarding the relevance of love, the relevance of lust, and by correlation, a vast number of associated issues.

To this time, I cannot say that I am in agreement with you, nor can I say that I offer dissent. In all fairness, my mind is not that of a great philosopher, but the very concept you have introduced has shaken me to the very depths of my soul. Love as a state of non-existence? This provokes odd questions regarding the nature of the human spirit. Lust as a state of heightened perception of physicality to the exclusion of all psycho-emotional ramifications? Troubling, indeed. For while I do indeed love you (more than anyone I have loved before), I cannot say that this is the destruction of me; and while I have experienced lust, nor is that, of necessity, my total spiritual annihilation.

I encourage you to walk gloriously into the anteroom of your apartment, which I have never had honor of visiting, and feel the faux-marble tiling (which you have described to me at great length) cling to your feet as you read the remainder of this missive, for while it would be best conveyed as wordless message, perhaps in the tones of music or the tones of oil or acrylic on canvas, I want you to be aware of the solid and immutable ground beneath your feet while I speak of mundane and tedious things.

I have held the delicate curve of your chin in my hands, and while I must admit that all our discussion of marriage was more than mere jesting on my part, I cannot convey to you in full my desperate fear for your wellbeing.

Time permits me only now to say one thing to you: feel the solidity of the floor upon which you stand, and

Timothy A. Clark
1997