I have been collecting things. Little things, it may seem to others, should others be paying attention, but things nonetheless.

For instance this, http://www.scribd.com/doc/3536132/Street-Haunting-Virginia-Woolf. It is a story I would have read to you, and with much enthusiasm and affection toward the second hand books, those "wild books, homeless books." I would likely hear the sound I'd come to desire resonate softly in my ears, so close to you: acknowledgments in laughter.

There are moments, so many it seems, when I reach for the phone, attempt to write a letter, consider sending an email note... to share with you things we loved together, things I know would make you smile, warm your heart, save you a little--perhaps from yourself; that mountain you've climbed aimlessly, alone.

But I am stopped from further contact. My spirit, perhaps irrational spirit, desires union. My mind relinquishes power, and the entire anatomy of my heart demands to speak. But I resist still. For three years I understood your place and wanted so to exist there with you, and I am reminded in such moments of reflection that your path was only wide enough for one and that all along I'd been carrying you, and you me, and maybe we just tired each other out. I'd like to say that I have energy, courage and ambition for us both, but somehow I don't think that's the way it happens.

Each day is a challenge still. And yet, new friends are coming into my life: Woolf, Sontag, Burton, Sebald, O'Hara, Freud (okay, maybe not Freud)... Rimbaud. In old dusty covers, in newly bound ones, and in piles. All over my house.

Love.