i’ve but seen you on three different occasions. you perhaps in love with another, a younger, a farther. me, spending my hours sending unlicked and foolish envelopes full of three years worth of unused love. letters. that you will not keep in a perhaps vermilion box. unreplied.

an invitation for a friday night dinner, with myself thinking far too fast and letting myself get carried away, carried – toward you. friday, a maybe one day someday anniversary. no. instead, a night spent alone, uncalled, and drinking for the first time by myself. nary a call nor message marked telephone of mine, although myself, perhaps foolishly sending one: “je n’avais pas très faim de toute façon…”

stood up, or rather sitting down, but being still somehow stood up. le lapin, as they say, being posed. to me. how i long to prefer your lips eyes hands smile breasts and oh sweet et ceteras to those of another, with you ô so happily requiting. the first, i suppose is already done, accomplished, achevé, as it were. the second, less so, perhaps none so. unrequited love and bitter almonds, destiny, or so i’ve been told.

weak stomach and shaking hands making mistakes and mixed metaphors, muddled tenses. all for unmistakable and uptillnow unfelt although unrequited…love. love. three years of living within unbroken containers, with the word stored, hidden, high upon a shelf. for emergency use only. tous abus sera punis. my fire drilling days are over, i’m offering up a used and unheartshaped heart. for you. you, for whom to whom and i could only hope with whom (i’m unabashedly no longer afraid to say) i am (amazingly, foolishly, with impatience and quivering breath) in love.