Dear You,

During these late afternoons, I find myself stopping to gaze at a wine drenched sky. There are moments when I would catch myself parting my lips, as if in longing.

You told me that there are some cold and dreary mornings when you would pour yourself a glass of wine as breakfast. Hah, mornings!? I laughed quietly at the admission and mocked you even. You’re becoming just another hopeless inebriate but I’ve dismissed that mocking thought. This cold and dreary morning wine pouring habit, this intake of bottled spirits, are just to combat long hours of darkness and coldness. Something to warm your Finnish soul, other than chicken soup or brewed coffee.

My late afternoon is wine drenched as you try to help yourself with a bottle of wine for breakfast. The red wine must have cavorted longer on your lips.* Five thousand five hundred ninety five miles away, I am parting my lips in longing and these weary bones morphs into a crystal wine glass, waiting, wanting to be filled. 

*With apologies to Gerry Rubio’s Burn Baby, Burn.

Dear J,

Five thousand five hundred ninety five miles,

I thought of how you look like

each morning as you start brewing coffee 

and as you begin writing me messages.

I wonder if your blue eyes lights up as your eyes graze on my glorious everyday tales

or if they get dimmer every time I tell you of my loneliness.

Five thousand five hundred ninety five miles,

this morning, the bitterness of instant coffee lingers on my lips,

and the emptiness of my inbox

dulls my pair of brown eyes even more.

It’s no secret,

The moon carries no light of her own. She has no light

until she receives from the sun.

Five thousand five hundred ninety five miles,

you are becoming this moon’s sun.

In shape of a crescent,

I am waning in your absence

five thousand five hundred ninety five miles away.

Veijo

A boy asked me today if I can write him harmless love letters. Yes, harmless as in not likely to cause any damage. The thought intrigued me. I felt like I wanted to write one as soon as possible. 

It was an invitation to receive love letters and write one back. He said that we would write each other words laced in tenderness, in passion, in lust or in desire.

It made me imagine beautiful love letters constantly arriving in the mail each month.  I am envisioning how glorious it would feel like opening a letter laced with love and desire. How I would select a scented piece of paper lightly perfumed with jasmine or maybe of vanilla, depending on what sweet scent I wish to stir his senses. How I would go for the warmth of pastel colored ones instead of the starkness of a white paper. How I would carefully write his name in cursive. How I would connect beautiful words of yearnings and of affection. How I would unhurriedly slid the folded paper in a stamped envelope. How I would seal it with a kiss after applying red lipstick to my parted lips.

How romantic… How gloriously romantic it would all be… Sigh… But the fascination ends with the thought that all these will be devoid of a real relationship. 

He doesn’t want the exchange of words to lead to a real affair. He wanted it long term but we are neither to start a real romantic affair nor feel “real love.” He just simply wants a letter romance since “real romances often lead to a very painful end. So why not make one that exists in letters only.”

It was saddening how world-weary he was… This is his escape. Since he can never fully get a hold of what he yearns for in real life, he’s trying to escape by living in a fantasy. Thinking that in letters there is a chance to experience a perfect love and be with a perfect lover.

Perfect. How strange this word tasted on my mouth but really, is there such a thing?

No. If he can hear my voice now, he would notice the tiredness in my no.

It makes me think of how fragile, of how breakable we all are. That once we got ourselves broken, we can never piece ourselves back whole. Isn’t this the story of our lives? You’ve heard this fragile story before. I won’t elaborate tired stories any further.

He ended his message with Your Veijo. (His name is Veijo and in Spanish, it means old. He’s a delightful old soul in love with fantasy and the improbable.) His closing warms my heart. Your Veijo. As if the closing is a positive declaration to give confidence to a lover. 

Isn’t the idea of having someone’s  heart and soul (and vice versa) tempting? Yes, it is. My days are empty and nights are emptier. How I would love nothing more than to wake up to a warm body, heartbeats to match. But no, we’ll never be lovers. If you can hear my voice one more time, you would notice the tiredness in my no. Morning will come and the light passing through my windows will betray nothing. No lover in sight. I am all I have.

Tired. Well, I am, honestly. I’m a worn-out little slipper, without a pair, that one still keeps in a little corner. Maybe the owner had just forgotten to throw me out. I don’t know… I’m never sure of things these days. Love seem to be far too distant from me. Maybe it is continents away, light years away even. I’m not sure. But we haven’t seen each other for the longest time. Or maybe we haven’t even met yet.  I honestly don’t know.

But slippers, no matter how worn-out, comes in pairs. We always comes in pairs. One of these days, we’ll find each other. I hope we will.