Letters

They are only some old love letters that I keep in a box under the stair. Wrapped in string, with a wedding ring and a lock of auburn hair. And I take them out occasionally, and carefully untie the twine. And I'm transported back in an instant, to a life that once was mine. From the first one I sent, to the last one I wrote, they are all chronologically kept. From the halting style of the callow youth, charting happy times and days that we wept. As I read these sepia 'billet doux', this tapestry of my life, from the moment we met, through times of regret, to the day you became my wife. I long for that kittenish, bright eyed girl, intelligent, witty and bright. Thoughtful and kind, strong of mind, who would laugh long into the night. But then that light dimmed, guttered and died, by a cruel twist of fate. Days when you didn't recognise me at all, when I realised all too late. I had lost you to something I could not fight, a heartless, cruel affliction. That robbed you of your humanity, your intellect, your memories, your diction. And so the box is returned to its keep, to the cupboard under the stair. Where it sits and just gathers dust, like the life that we two used to share.