A Love Letter (Posted Mainly to Be Kept):

Hey,

I'm just writing to say goodnight. I dunno...I feel lonely, bad for no reason, now that school's started. Just working all day like I used to to depresses me -- I wish I were back home and reading at my leisure, where it's sunny and the days stretch on and there's nothing to do. But here I am. Work is my companion and solitude my most constant comfort.

I wish I weren't a complicated person and I wish that I didn't get interested in people, because I'm afraid those things will make you not like me and will make you not want anything to do with me, especially since now you're having all these troubles. Perhaps you're disturbed and I can feel the ripples of that disturbance gripping me, tossing me, overtaking me.

So I don't ask for anything, except that in asking for nothing, I ask the only something you can give to me, which is, for me, your all: if I tell you that I like you and I think you're nice and I look forward to seeing you and I enjoy being with you, I hope that this will make you happy because you feel the same way about me and because attraction finds greater joy in the company of mutual affection.

What I mean is this: I miss you and I think about you. I'm afraid feeling this way about people I meet, especially people I know only a little, is some crime and the punishment for that crime is longing and loneliness. But a bud has to push hard against the soil to come out of the winter and into the spring. I like your light.

Alex