Second Letter

II.

Friday, or Saturday, I have lost track

Dearest Winter,

You spoke to me today. Only for quite some time. You asked if I had a pen, I do have one, and I gave it to you, and your fingers didn't touch mine (which is quite unfortunate), and I still spent the rest of the afternoon being grateful for that small mercy, because I wouldn't know myself of what I would've, should've done if they had.

And what do I know about you? Little. What I've constructed from the very little? Everything. This is my own particular, self-made madness and I am politely not asking you to forgive me for it. I am only keeping track of it, like how a naturalist records the habits of something he cannot approach, crouching in the brush, scarcely breathing.

I returned the pen later. You had already left. I set it on your desk and walked away and felt, absurdly, it felt like I had accomplished something. Like I had been close even if I'm still meters away from you. As if the object had held some warmth from your hand that I was permitted to be in the same room as.

I am aware of how this sounds.

I am writing it anyway.

still here, still watching the door