Only You

the letter

Dear Cate,

By the time you're reading this, I'll probably be a fleeting spark of gasoline, tearing down the highway to New York City. 

This will be my last letter to you in a while...but enclosed with this letter are all the poems I'd written in the notebook you gave me, and I hope you feel me with you as you read them, like I feel you whenever I so much as write your name. 

You say I have a way with words, but I find myself at a loss for words now. I don't think I can properly express in mere words how much I love you, how I cherished my time with you, how I miss you already. Every day we spent together on our trip was perfect. Every moment I was with you made a memory that will only sweeten over time. I love you, I love you, I love you. God, I wish I could say it verbally, say it over and over again to you like a mantra. Can you hear my voice saying it when you read this?

My choice to go back to the city is because, as you probably guessed, of a desire to escape the mundane. Even the sweetest of feelings may turn bitter if unchecked. All in all, I guess I'm scared. I'm scared I depend too much on you, and that I'll go insane if I stay in Bedford without being able to go to sleep with you at night. 

But please understand that this doesn't mean I will ever stop loving you. I'll love you till my breathing stops; I'll love you from the bottom of the sea to the peaks of the mountains; I'll love you until all my words burn out of me. I'll think of you--of your hands, your eyes, your voice, your skin--and I'll keep you in my heart. You are the sun, the stars, you're everything to me. Please understand this. Please.

(The next few lines have been crossed out.)

Will we ever see each other again? You already know that promises don't exist. But I believe in the stars, and if yours and mine align there will be no doubt about it.

Yours forever,

Jude