dear sweet no one (anyone),
i’ve been writing love letters for over a month.
today doesn’t really mean anything to me, and i am a sucker for ritual, and love is a ritual i don’t understand.
when i say love here, i mean romance.
when i say romance i mean i want to say romance until the word falls apart. i want to throw romance against the wall and i want it to stick or slide. i don’t care which.
when i say romance i mean i am not a romantic.
writing love letters is like this: i thrash my arms in a Google doc that only one person gets to read, and none of the letters are addressed to that person (until they are). someone i love reads the love letters i write with my thrashing arms and adds love, too.
none of this is romantic (until it is).
when i say i am not a romantic i mean i am against romance. no, i cannot explain this to you. and i can put it this way: i am unromantic for the romantic and i am deeply romantic for the platonic.
i am a sucker for ritual and i was taught early that love’s rituals looks like this and not this.
appear here but not there.
function this way and not that way.
ritual is a thing you can tie in a knot. romance is a thing wearing the coat you like. letters are something you can put in a box and/or pull out of your oral cavity. love is carnivorous. ritual eats olives but not brine. letters can tell you the future (but won’t). romance wants to honey your best slacks. love waits in the doorway with a stiff brush.
does that clear things up?
with love (without romance),
jj