Doorknobs & BodyPaint, Issue 65

Dearest, oh dearest Pamela,

Ink will not give me the joy of resting my head against your warm young body and bathing my fire in your cool blue pools of eyes. Biting into my sides are the empty sheets in the bed of my notebook, teasing me to recreate you there, waiting for your form to warm them by way of words. The sterility of the pages, impregnated though they be with your contour, taunts me. But until your living breath can cool the flame at my ears, that is all that I have. That, and images of you lying in tall grass, smile scintillating, pale arms outstretched. That first summer that still plays its heat on me, in me, through you. I search all day for those arms and will not cease searching until they enfold me again. I am half-faint with the breathlessness of waiting and waiting for you. Come home!

My deepest love,

Christopher

Dearest Christopher,

I received your letter, heavy with sadness and symbols, this very morning and decided to respond illico. I am, as always, fairly disarmed by your fervor, at a loss to develop a like response. But I do bathe in it. I welcome it, I glory in inspiring it. All while noting that the images in the tall grass are not of me. I am the one with allergies. And that I can gauge by the level of intensity, color, floridness of your letter the amount of wine you had drunk beforehand. I do not blame, I only recognize, as well as you, the danger of leaving you with only images. I am anxious to return for your sake. I know that it is for that same reason that you long for me so deeply. I hope to be back soon, to wrest the bottle and the pen from your hands, to bring my absence to a soothing end, to rematerialize there before you. For your sake. Drink well, keep writing, breathe until I return.

Your

Pamela