Andrew Neel

Love In Two Letters

My Sweet Songbird,

I wait every morning anxiously for the window to open. I wake up, like clockwork, at 4 a.m., jolted awake simply at the thought of you. I pace from window to window, awaiting your return, counting down the moments until I can see you again. I become so wretched without you. I stomp through the house, making everyone aware of the weight of your absence. I can’t have peace without you — why should they? Without you I feel so out of my skin; I spend my days just willing you back to the window. I need someone else to feel my outrage, my pain, my longing. I can’t possibly shoulder these feelings alone.

The girl I live with doesn’t understand the depths of my feelings for you. When I begin to cry after too long without you, she all but shoos me away with accusations of dramatization and over-exaggerations of my needing you. How callous she can be! What she doesn’t understand is that you are my only light, you are the only thing that stimulates me in what otherwise is a closed box with white walls. I can’t leave, I understand this. But the girl I live with doesn’t understand how achingly haunting these four white walls can be. They tease me endlessly: shadows dancing across the wall. I almost think they are visitors coming to save me from my own inner turmoil.

But you? When the window opens and I can see you again, the sinister shadows disappear from the darkness and the cobwebs vanish. I am filled to the brim only with hope. I long to just touch you…but I know that would be too much. Just a glimpse of your body, the softest whisper of your voice, is enough to send shivers down my spine and send me into a sort of madness.

I hope to see your face again soon, to look into your eyes, to feel your unbridled energy.

Until we meet again.

* * *

My Mischievous Little Tiger,

I could never imagine my days without you. The time I spend visiting you, fluttering about your window, just hoping to catch a glimpse of you, makes my heart soar. Your voice, which I know you have said can seem bothersome to the girl you live with, brings a calmness to me that I have never known. I am usually scared in these situations. But with you, I know I am safe.

Oh how I wish I could just burst through the window and fly through your glowing red mane. Your amber eyes would surely start little fires within me when not hindered by the dullness of a lousy screen.

How could the flimsiest piece of metal be so effective in keeping me from what I know is my rightful destiny? I long for the day when you and I can escape this hellish world of separation, of indifferent and cruel roommates, of life’s general injustices. For surely, life must be unjust if I can see you, but never be able to reach out to you and catch a wisp of your silky hair.

I, too, wake up at 4 a.m., startled by your absence, body curling ever more towards where yours should be.

Until the sun rises again, my love.