Letters, mine and yours

Friday's sonnet was no mistake.

I remember when I first wrote you letters, love. The first one was a tear-streaked confession of how badly I'd destroyed my life, and I never expected to hear from you again. The next dozen or so - the ones I'd photocopied myself - were the ones I spent coming to terms with the fact that nobody had ever said "I like you" to me before you did.

I remember this year's letters, love. The ones that I'd reliably turn out once a fortnight, fifteen pages of them, all blue and (eventually) copper ink. The ones where I would sing your praises, write them beautifully and well and mail them off to you with the Amnesty International letter seals. I wrote them all through this summer, love, and you'd be adorable about getting them on Facebook.

And then, suddenly, it got hard.

I've wished, oh I've wished, that I'd photocopied those letters of this year before I'd sent them, because my fear was realized: I don't know what was said now. And I've struggled, for the better part of a month, to find beautiful things and good to say that was new, that wasn't redundant. And it's been terrifying and painful.

Which is why I started to write to you last night, started to write I know not what, but to give a voice to that fear and that frustration... and I randomly rifled through the letters that you sent me. And that was when I discovered that they were starting to celebrate their first birthdays, the oldest among them; that the ink of the postal service was fading but still clearly read __.X.11.

And seeing that made me forget my fear and frustration, love, and I was adorable about having gotten them.

Thank you.