>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: w.h. auden
>>Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000

I was sitting around thinking, and I suddenly remembered a series of aphorisms that the English poet W.H. Auden wrote called "Dichtung und Warheit" which begins "Expecting your arrival tomorrow, I find myself thinking 'I love You:' then comes the thought:--'I should like to write a poem which would express exactly what I mean when I think these words.'" Then, through 50 aphorisms, Auden is trying to figure out if and how this can be done, and if it can, then why can poetry express it, and it finally ends in the final aphorism: "This poem I wished to write was to have expressed exactly what I mean when I think the words 'I love You,' but I cannot know exactly what I mean; it was to have been self-evidently true, but words cannot verify themselves. So this poem will remain unwritten."

From that, my mind began to wander again. I have never really let my emotions out of me completely in my life. I'm always so afraid that the power of what I feel will frighten whoever I'm feeling whatever I'm feeling towards. I hide behind this cold mask and have to constantly filter my emotions before I let anyone know how I feel about something. I was thinking about why I haven't been able to say anything I've wanted to say lately, and I realized it's because I had clamped the filter down even tighter than usual out of sheer habit because I was afraid to let you know the power and fury of my emotions towards you. I wasn't even aware that I was doing it because it has just always happened that I censor myself and never let my heart out of its cage. Right now, I'm trying to remove that filter and try and express even a fraction of what's going on because I know that you know what it's like to be consumed with feeling and be afraid to allow anyone to know how you feel because the intensity of your own emotions is enough to overwhelm someone. Please beware of gushing; sometimes, you just can't help it.

The hardest part is knowing where to begin. I remember receiving your very first e-mail reply and sitting back, staring in bewilderment at the level of your understanding and compassion. I don't remember what day of the week that was on, but I do remember we exchanged a few -- no more than 3 or 4 -- e-mails before that weekend, and I don't know if you remember, but that was the weekend that I didn't sleep at all from Friday to Monday, and that was because I couldn't get you out of my mind. It was really strange to me because I'm not usually the type to get that carried away over someone, and especially not that quickly. We've talked about that connection and that click, and that's still the only way I can describe any of it. Something just felt like it fit. Then I went to go see you, and I was terrified and excited and I just wanted to hug you or hold your hand all Friday night and I couldn't make myself move because I was still holding everything inside. Then, sitting there the next morning with you, when you put your head on my shoulder, it felt like everything was okay for a few minutes. There's a Get Up Kids song with the words "last night, everything was right, the rain was gone," and that's what it felt like. Then the airport...I've never wanted to not let go of someone so badly in my entire life. When you were here, sleeping beside me, it just felt so amazing. I tried to fall asleep initially, and I knew I couldn't, I don't know why, but I knew I couldn't sleep, and I watched you sleeping, and I felt so calm. It was such an amazing feeling just to have you lying next to me. When you would lay on the couch with your head in my lap and my arm over your side, I felt like I was going to disintegrate with contentment. And this is where I have trouble, because I'm not a superficial person at all, but you looked so beautiful lying there. You were beautiful before I met you. I was trying to carve it into my mind so I could try and hang onto it beyond the fleeing present because I had never felt as strongly about anyone as I felt towards you at that moment. It wasn't just love; it was tenderness, affection...and I know you don't like the way it sounds when you say it, but when you say, “I love you,” it sounds so wonderful. When I was reading your journal entry about me, I felt so...I don't even think a word exists. I wished there was some way I could tell you how I felt about you, and it took me this long to realize that the entire problem was in my head, and now that I've destroyed, or at least begun to destroy that emotional filter, I hope I can convey some of it.

In an Alkaline Trio song, there are the words "even christ himself would cringe at the sight of your scars," and you don't cringe at all. You brushed your fingers over them and put your hand on my forearm, and I knew you could feel the pain under those marks and that felt so amazing. Even though all we really did was watch TV and listen to music for the entire weekend, it was like doing something I had never done before because you were with me. And when I read in your journal that it makes you feel better to be with me, I didn't feel useless or worthless because I knew I had done for you everything that you have done for me: the pain is dulled, even if only temporarily, and you don't feel as lost and alone anymore. I am so amazed by you. I don't really believe in "soulmates" or anything like that, but sometimes I wonder. The rest of the world is still rotten and life still seems like too much to bear, but it's not as cold and barren anymore, and when we finally lay down because we've had enough, I want to die holding your hand.

I'm physically exhausted now. I felt like if I didn't get that out, I would explode, and I needed you to know what and how I felt. Gushing, sentimental, cheesy, however it seems, there it is. I just can't stop thinking about you and how wonderful I think you are and how great it feels to be with you. I love you so much that sometimes it's impossible to keep in, and now is one of those times.

I hope you had a good evening and your Wednesday starts better than your Tuesday did. I wish I could be there.

I love you, Perdita.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: w.h. auden
>Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000

Belacqua,

Oh, Belacqua.... The other day, you wrote an e-mail to me that said you felt like we were reaching depths of each other that no one else can see and you mentioned that you thought it was amazing that I can see those in you and that I love you for them, and I just feel like stating how very right that was and how very MUCH I love those parts of you. I've been looking my entire life for people who can see that part of me that is beyond the ordinary reach of humankind, those "catacombs" I described in the poem I sent you once about how "some people's brains have a limit." I had all but given in to the concept that EVERYONE'S brain had that limit except for mine and all I could hope to do was find a handful of people over the course of my lifetime who were willing to merely accept me for being "different." I had COMPLETELY given up on the ability of any human being to understand anything I was trying to say, and now all of a sudden, I know you're understanding me and I know you take what I say the way I mean for it to be taken when the very same words would mean something entirely different to someone else.

I've also had lots of problems with people assuming I'm not very bright just because my major in school was music. The people I worked with were always commenting on how easy it must be for a singer to get through school while they were there trying to pass a biology exam or something, but that's so full of SHIT because I KNEW all this time that there were things in my head that were so beyond what they could comprehend and I just couldn't even fathom their blatant obliviousness to that fact. Intelligence, to me, goes in completely the opposite direction from where everyone likes to think of it as going. Besides, being a singer in school was FAR from easy, and they couldn't see that just because it was different from what they were doing. I'm so used to people taking one look at me and assuming I'm not very bright and it drives me absolutely up a wall, so I'm just really, really glad you can give me the time of day and see that there's more to me than the fact that I'm "just a singer," or fucked in the head, or any of those other reasons people can come up with as an excuse not to associate with me.

You know, yesterday when I called you, I was sitting here at work for several hours doing just fine (aside from the bleeding), and then all of a sudden I just started wondering about you and how you were and I thought back on our conversation the night before, and I just got so goddamn frightened that you had cut yourself too deeply and were too drunk to realize it. So I just had these visions of you dead in your bed after having bled to death (damn unintentional assonance), and I completely panicked. That sort of thing happens all the time and I just flip out because my brain went from assuming you were dead to wondering when someone would finally think to TELL me, and then I wondered if I would have to call your neighbor to ask him to go look for you, and I just freaked out because I don't know what I'd do if I suddenly found out you were dead. I think I'd pick up my knife and slit my wrists instantaneously and say a big FUCK YOU to the rest of the world for being so goddamn unfair.

Thank you for everything you said in your last e-mail. There's nothing you could say that would scare me away, and I really hope you know that. I just love that we can talk about blowing people's heads off without batting an eye when the rest of the world would be running away. And resting my head on your lap with your arm on my side was one of the most wonderful feelings in my life, too, and I just didn't want to leave on Sunday, and I really felt for awhile that if I could just stop thinking about it, time would stop right then. But of course, time sucks and here I am a thousand miles away again, wondering how I'm ever going to live through even the next moment without you next to me.

Sorry about the shameless gushing, but like I've told you before, I can't allow myself to just let things like this go without saying them. Belacqua, I love you more than anything, and I can't wait to see you again.
Perdita