Dear Michael,
I'm not a poet although at times I wish I were. There are things I long to say to you that just seem to leave me when I find myself drifting on the tides in your deep brown eyes. I've told you that one of my favorite poets is Elizabeth Barrett Browning, when I woke up I was drawn like a magnet to my volume of Sonnets from the Portuguese. I've read to you from it a couple of times. But there are a few sonnets that express better then I ever could how I feel. So I'm sitting here at 4'o clock in the morning only a few feet away from you as you sleep so peacefully. And I have to wonder have I done enough to let you know how much I love you, how much you mean to me. And I'm not sure because there never seems to be enough time. So right now I'm making the time, before there is no time left to us.
I want you to read this whenever things get too hard, when you're tired from sitting up all night at the hospital. Or when I can't put my arms around you the way I want to, or kiss you the way you need to be kissed. When you can't remember why you love me or when it becomes hard to love me, I want you to come and get this letter and read it and hear my voice. And know how very much you are loved and appreciated.
Can it be right to give what I can give?
To let thee sit beneath the fail of tears
As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live
For all thy adjurations? O my fears,
That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,
So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve
That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!
I will not soil thy purple with my dust,
Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,
Nor give thee any love-which were unjust.
Beloved, I only love thee! Let it pass.
Sometimes I feel so guilty because I know what's going to happen. And the more time I spend with you the more I love you. And the more it hurts me to know that I can't grow old with you. That we won't get the chance to watch each other grow fat and gray and grumpy. All because of a momentary lapse in judgment, for a man I loved but can clearly see now was never in love with. A man I would never want to spend the rest of my life with. Although I've gotten to a place where we can at least be friends again.
You have no idea how many times I wished I could have gone back in time and taken that moment back. And before I met you I had long since pushed that feeling deep down in a place where there is no sunlight. I've tried to accept what was going to happen, even made a sort of peace with it. Even convinced myself that it happened for a reason, that being to make me appreciate my gifts and life more.
A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
By a beating heart at dance-time. Hope apace
Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace
Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring
And let it drop adown thy calmly great
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its own nature doth precipitate,
While thine doth close it, mediating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.
You came along and I find myself wishing for the life I'm not gong to have. For the house in the country, and the summers spent hiking through Europe, on ten bucks a day with two old ratty back packs that we just can't bear to part with. Living in the moment sometimes takes so much concentration that I feel I'm going to choke on it. But then that feeling subsides because you're part of most of those moments.
You've changed everything and I should feel guilty because I know I should push you away. I should tell you to go for your own sake. I should have gone to Tibet and let you go on with your life. But being with you calms the demons in my head. You loving me lets me know I can handle anything to come.
It's not that my life was empty before I met you. It's just that once you entered my life it was like a switch being flipped. Something I didn't want to acknowledge as missing had suddenly been found. It amazes me how much I missed it. It's even more amazing to me how much I love you, how it keeps growing and changing.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints-I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose,
I shall love thee better after death.
Please, please remember this baby above everything else.
Love,
Ben