romance to the grave

Dear K-

I wondered how long the bout of euphoria would last. You and me, we’re meant for crumbling. We dream and aspire and build build build our beautiful cities, carved from stone and forests and earth, but in the end our lovely spires will come tumbling down. Our foundation is weak. We can try to build our hopes as many times as we’d like, and maybe those glittering pinnacles will stand erect and admirable for some period of time, but eventually that foundation will give way (just as it has always and will always give way) and we will crumble.

I’ve been watching weathermen on the television sputter into icy microphones, with fogged over glasses and frostbitten peachy cheeks. The snow gusts in horizontal waves, like a wintry white wall that pulls at their furry hoods and makes them brace their feet like an awkwardly posed statue. This miserable weather allowed me to leave work early, mostly because all our patients scheduled for the afternoon decided to reschedule in light of the predicted climate. I spent the free afternoon shoveling the parking lot, because I get paid to do so. Unfortunately, it was truly a Sisyphean effort. Within minutes of moving on to a new section, the previously cleared section would be filled with two to three inches of new snow blowing in from the North. I still labored away for two hours, gaining the glittering adornment of an ice headband across my scalp where my hood and earmuffs failed to overlap. I felt no cold. It was a matter of continuing to move, feeling the muscles burn in my back as I bent to lift a shovel-full and toss it over the curb. By the end of it all, my cheeks were red like cherries and my eyes were smeared with a coal-like lining. Apparently Sephora isn’t blizzard-proof.

Hold on tight. We’ll get through this lull. The current is very strong, and I want you to stay with me a little while. Even if it means I need to start sending you things in the mail. I’ll send you whatever comes to hand. Letters, cocktail napkins with scribbled notes, conte crayon sketches, receipts for things I bought that reminded me of you. It doesn’t matter. I just want you to feel loved. I’ll send you fireworks, city asphalt, a rosary, children’s laughter, shooting stars, green chewy twigs, circuit boards, church chimes, old currency, sweater vests, blades of grass, ocean shells, whispered secrets, fears, dreams, regrets. It’s yours. It’s all yours, if you want it. It’s all that keeps my veins pumping blood to and fro in the cold nights.

Someday the sunlight will return, and maybe then I can stop running in circles. Maybe then I can run through the streets again and beat a path through the forest like I used to in Ljubljana.

Weary in the winter,
-K