Your Letter by AW

I gingerly open the neatly folded letter. As I do, I often wonder how you manage to fold it with such precision. Was it a lot of practice? Or did you take the time to measure and calculate before folding it? I tried doing the same once and ended up taking a ridiculous amount of time to get it just right. Yet, you make it seem so easy, a piece of cake, how the end of one side of the paper fits in the slot perfectly.

I run my fingers over the words, YOUR words. My touch receptors somewhat manage to delay my sight receptors and for that infinitesimal second before my mind registers what I’m seeing, your handwriting is beautiful. Then as my sense of sight kicks in, a thought surfaces- it’s so ironic how both qualities, impeccably neat and atrociously messy, could be possessed by the same person. Then, a voice at the back of my mind quips,” That’s why he’s so intriguing and you like that about him. It’s the beauty of his complexity and the air of mystery he carries.” At that thought, my lips slide up into a smile.

I read your letter, but my mind doesn’t register the words. As of now, I just don’t recognize any of the words I’m reading. All that clouds my mind are thoughts of you penning down your thought onto this sheet of paper I now hold in my hands. My picture of you is ever-changing, because I don’t know for sure the conditions in which you’re writing this letter. Sometimes, I imagine you on your bed, leaning against your bed post, with a blue pen in hand and the paper on your lap. Other times, you’re sitting on a chair with your chin resting on the palm of one hand and in the other, you’re gripping the pen in the peculiar way that you do, brows furrowed in concentration, being careful to choose the right word, knowing full well that words matter to me.

A part of me wants you to fill in the gaping holes in my picture and yet, the other part wants to keep guessing, keep wondering, keep imagining, to keep constructing until I’ve painted the most magnificent picture of a man composing a letter in the wee hours of the night to his lover while draining the dregs of coffee from his mug.

I read the last 3 words separately, picking them apart from one another to analyse them. ‘I’, the ninth letter of the English alphabet, also a first person singular pronoun, means nothing without a verb to go with it. ‘Love’, a strong feeling of affection towards someone, meaningless if not addressed to anyone in particular. ‘You’, used as the subject of a verb or the object of a verb or preposition, like the other two words, is meaningless on its own. The three words when put together, however, segue so seamlessly into one another. ‘I’ and ‘you’, words so different in meaning, like totally different keys on the piano, with a word like ‘love’ as a transition chord, can flow smoothly from a C to an A flat, or even from a minor to a major. I take a deep breath and let it all sink in, not knowing when I’ll read of those words or hear them again.

With those words now etched deeply in the folded membranes of my cerebrum, I cautiously fold the end of the paper back into the slot, like the way it was before. I store it in my wallet so I always carry a piece of you with me. Cheesy, soppy, cliché, I know, but believe it or not, that’s something, I believe, everyone will experience at least once in their lifetime. Perhaps one day, I wouldn’t need to carry it around with me anymore. To be honest, I’m excited for that day and if you’re on the same wavelength as I am, you’ll share my excitement.