
Dear E,
i open your letter, stare squarely at its face and wait for phrases to leap out and pain a picture from a thousand words. there aren't any. bold, italicized words, commas and periods and exclamation marks, they mean nothing.
the letters, the marks, they fall to the fingers that hold them, making quesay inkblots on my thumb and forefingers. they fall until a stark blank page stares at me.
"goodbye..."
that's all it said.
no "dear" or "sincerely", just goodbye.
you have to leave. to go where your ambition leads you. but all it would take is a word from me, you say, a quaint smile, a pair of telling eyes to say "No." but who am i to stand between you and the Better Things? What we have and what we'll be are two different things. on this battleground we call Life, one is bound to fight a losing battle. my own dream to write is still nowhere but bleak, and yours is only beginning.
i misspelled my fuchsia and you hated me for it. you breathed your polynomials with ease and i hated you for it. together we were Romeo and Jules, and yes, we were living examples that love truly works for dorks.
im shutting off my radio, for one more "Maybe This Time" will kill me. im burning my haikus and my sonnets will weep with me.
you've made me the better person that i am today. you taught me to be considerate, to put a leash on my temper, to edit out those darned cuss words from my vocabulary. you even taught me how to fly, to reach for our dream, and we're doing just that. but you never taught me the harder things. it's easy to say goodbye but never easy to ask someone to stay.
i guess i have to get used to it now.
all too sudden the world is sullen, the world is full of weeping. it mourns the birth of every sun and cries at the deaths of all the moons. yes, even the words that keep me company are tired and lonesome.
Chicago and Manila are oceans apart, neither bridges nor telephone lines are enough to fill the space between us. we won't fool ourselves---long distance love affaairs are the stuff of novels, the kind of storyline you find in three-hankie tearjerkers--- they're nothing but unfinished fairytales waiting for their happy endings.
we won't wait for ours. No, absence does not make the heart grow fonder, absence is like a thief who visits in the middle of the night to snatch what we feel for each other.
Longing will be made flesh when you leave. we will grow, but we will grow apart. come back if you can, but no promises will be broken for no prOmises will be made.
how can i ask you to stay? love isn't enough. probably freedom is.
all of me,
louie
i never thought a letter expressing much of reality can still be born
**mucho luvin' to louie cano