Cover Art by Christine Wagner В© 2012 For more of her artwork, please visit: http://www.christinewagnerart.com/ Dear anonymous reader, A bond and connection between two people can be so strong that, the bond itself becomes intangible. In order to bring it back down to earth, to being as tangible as their touch; we write love letters. With love, The love letters anonymous crew The children of my first marriage, This little handful of stones and songs and memories Digging through them is like falling down a flight of stairs. The torch I gave you, Your hand on the bow, Our cigarette between your fingers, The flowered flask sloshing in my pocket while we dance. That little tick, you do with your eyes when you looked at me, The leaves under us, the moon through the trees, The boots you wore in that story you told me, Your beautiful, small hands. Dog chase cats, Or the starry sky we watched together.! My friend Alysa posted a note on how not to how to be a good Valentine. Let me start by saying I think we get it right in grade school every child writes a Valentine to every other child in class. Think of the shyest, most awkward kid in school on that day, he or she receives dozens of cute sweet notes from classmates. How cool is that! ay as a time to tell the people around you that you care about them. Obviously you are going to do something special for the significant other in your life, but you should also do something for your best friend, your office mate, your neighbor or even for the person that serves you coffee at Starbucks. So here are my thoughts on how to be a good Valentine: GIVE FLOWERS -- to my loved one, my friends, the people I work with, the casts of the shows I am in, performers who have touched me with their work, everyone. Flowers are delicate expensive, a single rose or carnation is enough to show someone that you care. White for purity and innocence, yellow for joy and happiness, red for true love or deep friendship. WRITE SOMETHING As much as I am a product of the information age, there is nothing more touching that receiving a hand-written note from a piece of paper is enough. Hallmark. PRAISE HONESTLY you laugh or SURPRISE THEM-- BE CREATIVE their desks or workstations, send them a poem or a drawing of a rose to their office or hotel room, have a barbershop quartet sing melodies to them at work, bake them cookies, take them for a surprise picnic in your living room. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made though and emotion behind it. As I have been saying to the cast of my current show-- Have FUN with it! SAY I LOVE YOU To everyone to your lover, but also to your mother, father, sisters, brothers, sons, daughers and most of all to your friends. There are all different types of love romantic love, platonic love, playful love, love that comes out of respect and admiration, love that comes from being thankful for the people around you. continue to do so, as often as you can, every other day of the year. That is how to be a good Valentine. ! D ear Spider-Man, I saw you high above the astonished crowds, this shimmering streak of red and blue anonymity amidst the cold gray of the city skyline. T ales of your greatest triumphs and bitterest defeats are talked about on the sidewalk all the time. I 've seen you compassionately save the lives of people who would hurt you if they could. Y ou aren't perfect; your mistakes have cost you. I don't blame you for the unfortunate death of G wen Stacy during that fight with the G reen G oblin, although you seemed visibly shaken, holding onto her lifeless form at the edge of the E ast River. I cannot fathom the grief and guilt you must feel in those situations. But you prevail regardless. Y ou don't let circumstance perturb you. Y ou fight for what you believe in. I 'll be honest, it has been very downhill for me. A reversal of fortune in my once burgeoning life has stripped me of my self-respect and confidence. I used to wake up before the sun. N ow I am surprised if I can even wake up before the moon. I used to believe in myself, Spider-Man. T he world has thrown its punches and can't get up for the life of me. Spider-Man, how do you become the hero? Y ou defend a city that treats you like the villain. Sometimes you lose the fight, only to stand up and fight again. Y ou take on opponents much stronger than you in a weakened state and defy the odds while the public you serve wants to see you fail. I can only assume you have sacrificed a personal life in desperate need of your attention. What do you know or trust that can possibly make you that strong and enduring? What philosophical viewpoint or emotional catalyst do you have that sustains you despite the lack of gratitude or reward? H ow are you willing to sacrifice your life for a community that never asked for your services? I 've seen you in action; I know your inconceivable feats of strength and agility. But I have also seen you take a beating. I 've seen the blood rush from your wounds like any other human. Y our unwavering determination is your true superpower, and I refuse to believe a radioactive spider endowed you with that. We don't all have that amazing origin story, but I know toughness is someone disregarding their vulnerability for something larger than themselves. I don't exactly understand your specifics, but one day I hope to be as tough as you, Spider-Man. Sincerely, Y our Friendly N eighborhood John D oe Loved and Lost As I look back on the things you'd say I wonder how long you knew it would end this way I tell my self it wont be long till the memories dull and the hurt is gone But the gash in my heart since we're now apart makes me feel like I'm back, right at the start Theres an emptiness that today is new and it feels so strong when I think of you The times we struggled and the times we faught have seemingly all come to naught there where nights we promised, and so much we would share but now it just sucks that you're not there. I can't believe I am actually writing you this letter. I can't believe I'm even trying. Day after day, Camilla, I walk from class to class, to and from my car, in and out of bed, from friends' houses to my own, in a dazed stupor. Every waking moment is hinged on a twinge of guilt, as any specter of life, whether it be love, death, friendship, etc. crosses my mind, so do you. Every story and every song I hear, I see you. I see you smiling and I see you crying. Every word spoken of freedom and hope I listen to by artists, rappers, political theorists in all arrays of contexts, my mind harkens to the memories we made, Camilla, to the proclamations of our hope in the future, of our freedom found in the love we shared, and the serenity it instilled in my spirit then, that now when I look back, has the golden hue of a lost treasure, a forsaken treasure. Those golden summers we made for ourselves, Camilla, I have never been happier. And today, I sit on my ass, crying, trying to write you this letter, and I can't believe it. It's like I've committed a murder, and this is my confession. Like I've killed you with my selfishness, and your spirit remains, haunting me. Not just your remaining presence in my heart and its corrosive sting, but your angel too, who walks the halls of school, a beacon of beauty and light whose splendor reaches beyond my understanding. And writing to an angel feels so hopeless and helpless, an angel whose voices is now so distant and remote from me, that I have never felt so lonely. And I pushed you out of my life so quickly and suddenly so, the void you left behind can only be filled with the pain, with all the shame. And the shame brings me to tears almost every day it seems...when I clutch my chest and look in the mirror, and the panicky questions scream at me when I look into my eyes. вЂњWho are you? What have you done? What the fuck were you thinking...вЂќ For the first time in my life, I feel like I have regressed entirely, like my growth has been stunted. And for hard it is to live with myself, I cry because I know the pain I feel doesn't compare to the pain I've caused you. It makes me cringe. It makes me feel sick of myself. It makes me feel selfish for crying and I cry some more. I'm slowly coming to the realization, Camilla, that the best thing I have to hope for is that you can one day let go of me, for good. And personally, I'd rather you forget I exist than hate me, and I think you'd agree, though for different reasons. I'm all alone, and I deserve to be alone. Maybe one day, some time future, we can speak once more, but I may be wishing myself an impossibility. I do not know. All I know is that, itвЂ™s getting harder and harder every day, and I need to let you know how I feel. I am tempted to write more, but I'm so afraid of hurting you more. I'm in Chile, Camilla. Everyone asks me where you are, why I havenвЂ™t brought you. Not even the Mediterranean air and my mountains bring me solace. Dear Elliot I should be sitting on someone elseвЂ™s balcony, smoking a cigarette, talking about Germany. I can let him kiss me and maybe IвЂ™ll be happy for a while. But I fell in love with you when you were moving between doorways. That night. So long ago. You wonвЂ™t even remember me, but I smiled. I did smile. You were arrogant, you were unashamedly arrogant. And girls fell at your feet. Because you were suntanned and strong and beautiful. And then you changed. You moved to England and you came back and the boy was gone. In his place a man who could never love a fuck-up like me. Sweet, silent Economists simply do not marry messed up smoking, drinking, swearing, slutty artist types. Yours truly, always. You broke my heart. Ps. I quit smoking for you for a dayвЂ¦ TITLE: Getting Carried Away Dear Thea, Thea, my sweet invisible girl Theaaaaa, I sing. [He and I measure our love in lengths of albums played, hours gone by] Thea, Thea, you're пїЅlitting through the trees, arms linked with other muses I hear your voice so clearly, but will our skin ever touch? [I see the possibilities in his eyes, like little universes all the silly, bad love songs make sense We compose, like collage-artists adding harmonies on top of molasses-like music pouring the sticky, slow sweetness everywhere It covers everything now we work, feverishly, passionately in one place Arrows through apples quivers still shaking warm heart blood dribbling, lacing our пїЅingers I'll never, ever grow too cold to trace hearts on his back while he sleeps listen to his breath and count all the kisses with imaginary numbers] And picture a sweet, barefoot girl dancing, grape-vine steps, through the grass Out in the universe off in another plane dancing sweetly to the songs he and I will play Maybe we'll beckon you to come down, someday Love, Your Earth Mother To Ambiguity, We talk at each other without ever saying anything. The line is always shifting its location. вЂњWeвЂ™re not friends,вЂќ but weвЂ™re not anything else either. You make me smile and laugh when I donвЂ™t feel like doing either of those things. And everyoneвЂ™s life can use a wrecking ball once in a while. So what the hell difference does it make? What never grows old can never die. From, Recklessness In mornings I sit, 'neath dawns first rays Bathed in light 'n glorious new sounds But all this pales, the mere birth of a day To your smile, all of Helios' daily rounds Your fairness of figure and face, unmatched No parallel exists to your beauty and grace All the wondrous dreams my mind has hatched Hold not a candle to the radiance of your face I'd forsake suns' light, and live under clouds With you at my side, my life'd still be brighter Together to live, laugh and cry I'd be proud The heaviest burdens would be so much lighter Lost in your eyes, twin pools of brown So rich I could cry, so deep I could drown To Whom It May Concern, IвЂ™ve told you what and who you are to me. IвЂ™ve written you letters, IвЂ™ve written you poems, IвЂ™ve made you books about fishes. WeвЂ™ve seen each other at our worst and our best and lived to write another letter. So here is a list of things you already know. Most of it might be redundant, but youвЂ™re the one who told me everyone likes to be told these things, even if it doesnвЂ™t seem necessary. The following is a list of things that I love. 1. I love easy things. And dancing my cares away. Loudly. Down the street. While attached to you so you canвЂ™t run away from the crazy person. 2. Magic Pills. I вЂњdapвЂќ for them. ThatвЂ™s love. 3. That face you make when youвЂ™re annoyed. Like whenever I do something completely ridiculous. And then do it five hundred more times after you tell me not to do it again. And by completely ridiculous I mean ridiculously adorable and painfully cute. You should actually probably reevaluate your facial expressions, sir. Annoyance is just not an appropriate response to how awesome I am. пЃЉ 4. How offended you are by my hatred for your favorite movie. And how itвЂ™s the first thing you tell EVERYBODY about me when I meet them. But, it is a valid thing to tell people. ItвЂ™s an awful movie. 5. I really love that simply reading number probably made you just a teensy bit angry. You even probably made the annoyed face, didnвЂ™t you? But now youвЂ™re laughing, so itвЂ™s okay. IвЂ™m cute again and no longer a terrible person. 6. I adore going places with you. Art museums. Road trips to the Deep South. The couch to watch some Dr. Who. Everyday is an adventure, regardless of the destination. 7. Peanut Butter. Especially in cookie form. Oh, and websites dedicated to ugly pictures of baby Jesus. Both of those things are equally amazing. And totally go together. And belong on this list. 8. Your wonderful ability to teach me something everyday. And the fact that youвЂ™ll continue to talk even after I interrupt you a million and a half times by breaking into random songs. Remember, itвЂ™s not annoying. ItвЂ™s cute. And you love me. So itвЂ™s absolutely okay. (I also like how youвЂ™ll ask me a million and a half questions about every little thing I read until you know every detail. You let me make you fall in love with books youвЂ™ll never have the time to read. I bet you charm all the girls with how well read you are.) 9. Even when things are hard and we canвЂ™t be near each other and there never seems to be enough hours in the day to get anything at all done, let alone the giant pile of shit that threatens to devour our lives, you understand. YouвЂ™re patient and wonderful and always take my general frustration with life in stride. And the only thing you ever ask of me is to do the same for you. 10. I love you. Thanks for being awesome with me all the time everyday. Love, Me As time passes on I've realized how lucky I am to have had to live only moments without you in it. I can not image how lonely this world would actually be if I did not know that you would always be there besides me. That no matter how dreary the worst of days can be knowing that you are out there some where makes my pains melt away. And if I ever have needed a comforting word, you've never withheld your aп¬Ђections. This love you have shown me has made me into a person that I am proud of. I know you deserve better and I hope that one day I can resemble that someone. I can only pray that your patients never wears thin until that day п¬Ѓnally arrives. At many times knowing you has been the best part of my life, full п¬Ѓlling when nothing else could be. A rock when I was too unstable and a untempered wind when I was stuck in the usual rut. You always know how to be the best person for me when I need it most. You have my eternal greatness and love for all the kindness and joy you have shown me. I can only hope that there will be more years to come. To an eternity of friendship and love, This is not just another love letter. This is not just another story. This is it! Nothing in my life is as big as this. This is the most important chapter in my life and I am not going to feel guilty about giving it the importance that it deserves. We loved each other. We lost each other. I dint think our love special enough to stand the tides of time. But when I spoke with you after so many years, everything just came rushing back to me. I donвЂ™t think the love, passion, good will or friendship that we shared, ever left me. For the first time in a long time, I have seen you so helpless. Even though it looks like you are still figuring things out, you have always been assertive about your actions. Today was not like any other day. Today it looked like you needed support. В And it breaks my heart to know that I am the reason for this. I just want to take a minute, step back and see how far we have come along. I know our world is really small and we are the only two people in it. Even then, this relationship between us feels like the world to me. I am so amazed at you. Never in my life had I thought I would find you when all I ever did was, wait for you. Yes, you are the one. You are it! You will always be the one! Sometimes I feel so selfish that I want to keep you all to myself. If it were up to me I would just spend every minute of my waking hour only with you, thinking about you, for the rest of my life. You are the biggest and greatest truth of my life. You are and I just cannot deny it. I am not sure, if I even deserve so much love. В I am completely head over heels right now. I have stopped asking why a long time ago. Coz, reason doesnвЂ™t matter anymore. All of this feels way beyond any rhyme or reason. Love is such a powerful feeling. I now realize that.В Thank you for showing me my own potential to love someone with so much passion. Nothing that I am saying is exaggerated or unwanted. How can I move on from something so amazing and magnetic? В How can I move on from you? Is this even possible? Is this even something a person can just do? It felt like I was running away from my own happiness when I lost you. If this isnвЂ™t real then what is. If this isnвЂ™t perfect then what is? Moving is not even an option. I think the pain of carrying you in my heart will give me much more happiness than moving on. How can the world expect me to let go of something that I feel so strongly about. I know itвЂ™s not fair for me to ask you to let go either. And I can only imagine your difficulty in it. The truth is you have been so magical and charming that my current life feels very ordinary to me.В You showed me how to love and you will always be my first love. I will cherish this magic forever. Dearest Me, You are a mess. You make bad decisions. You are irrational. You are extreme. You are complicated. No, complex. You are minimal. You donвЂ™t know how to communicate. You tell me the best things though. You donвЂ™t allow anyone to get as close to you as you have allowed me. You never will. And that is because exposure would spoil the mystery. You think differently. Although some think it is weird, I know that you are amazing. You are passionate and eager. Maybe you arenвЂ™t the best at anything but you do your best therefore you are the greatest. You are always here for me. No one else is as accessible as you. You donвЂ™t know how to love but I can teach you because I love you. At the end of the day, that is the only person you can be sure of loving you, no matter how badly you fuck up. Happy ValentineвЂ™s Day. 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But we don't. We still dress up and go out to restaurants. We still watch TV, play video games, and eat take out. We still go on walks through parks and hiking trails. We still discuss books and go to museums. We still write love letters. We still have good days. And in my humble opinion, every irrational moment of happiness, is a moment in which we stand unscathed by our misfortune. You laugh, and flood oblivion with bliss. You smile, and death quivers in fear beneath your feet. Broader than friendship, Deeper than Romance, Beyond my words, I send you the Greatest Love, Your Cigarette Smoke If lost I am, I find fault with your gaze Lured as I was, into their timeless maze To wander in this mellifluous haze An innocent glimpse and I'm all but caught By bonds and tethers that can't be fought in a gentle snare, spell that you've wrought If I am trapped, your eyes should be blamed By them I'm enchanted, my spirit is tamed This subtle power, ineffable, unnamed Held captive by ties I'd fear to brake Willing victim of such pleasant restraint In this dulcet utopia that you create Windows to your soul, out I cannot fly In which, to lose mine, I would try I see the end of me there, reflected by These, your almond eyes. To you, We are stupid for being in love... you live so far away, I have a different boyfriend, your parents hate me, we both have a hard time committing but there is no one like you. I love that you will get fancy when I want to wear a nice dress. I love that you know what I mean without having to make sense. I love that you think IвЂ™m beautiful and tell me whenever you can. I love that you have confused me wackiness for sexiness. I love that you love to give back massages. I love that I can tell you anything. I love that when I see you, it is like nothing has changed over the 3 years apart. You are perfect to me. Basically, I love that you are the only person that I love more than myself. Love Me. In a vessel which hollow echoes sound. To stay and linger I'd tempted be But rest is not for such as me I've burdens to bear, promises to keep And scores to settle before I sleep So once more I go into the breach Along my way can't help but think I've come to balance on this brink Amidst obligations options shrink Bittersweet potion I've made to drink On this razors edge I'm left to stand No one ahead to lend a guiding hand Harsh purpose cuts away the land Stark the view this precipice commands Of potential lost to austere demands Not much of me here still remains Passing through too many flames Yet tempered now by fire and rain Washed clean of many an old stain All the tawdry tethers cut left plain Few the ties under which I strain In my simplicity I can see clear Each thing in life that I hold dear All I'd guard with life and spear Held in my heart forever near This burden with fierce pride I bear To fight for all those in my care From all harm to shield and spare The only thing left to regret My eyes too briefly on you set And even though we've never met Shall never share a sweet duet I would dare ask you not forget That my quiet love endures yet Scribbled now in deep secret I give to you, this last octet Dear G,Q. Your indifference makes me hate myself. Have fun with whomever YouвЂ™re fucking this week.. вЂ¦ I mean.. вЂ¦ Happy Valentines Day With Love Dearest Love, Sometimes, when I find myself thinking about what's important to me in my life, I'm reasonably sure I've gone mad. That somewhere along the way, I realized that there's this one glaring flaw with everything I'm attempting to build, accomplish, and prove, that sort of puts the lie to it all, makes it all sort of futile. I've acknowledged this, yet I keep going, for no pressing reason, when I should probably be reevaluating and changing direction. I feel like this should be at least a little distressing to me, as to all appearances it sort-of-perhaps-might-kind-of look like I'm willfully throwing my life away. But I'm not distressed. I think I might have lost the capacity for distress. I want you to know that I hold you solely responsible for all of this. Somewhere along the way my mind broke in a very peculiar way, and I blame you. I'll do my best to explain, in brief, I can't be bothered to go into depth (you can read my thesis paper on it if you really want to), because lets be honest, I don't owe you a goddamn thing, not at this point anyway. The driving force behind my decision to go to war went something like this: I knew what was important to me in my life, and I felt obligated to prove, to myself, and the world, and also to the object of importance, exactly how important it was. Now, the only things in my life of any importance were my relationships with my friends (this umbrella covers family as well), and the amount you care about something is directly proportional to what you're willing to sacrifice for it. So if I was true to my belief, I would be willing to risk, and if necessary sacrifice, my life in order to protect my friends. I wanted it to mean something when I told my friends, or my future wife that I would die for them. So naturally I went off to go make friends in the army, and see if I really believed everything I preached. When put to the test, I behaved exactly as I thought, and hoped I would, sort of. I had always thought that there were certain things you couldn't know about yourself until you'd been put to the test. Things like how a person reacts when it all comes down to the wire, when lives and futures are threatened, and everything is hanging by a thread, suspended by one's ability to do the right thing without hesitation. Now that I have been there and done that and know exactly how I behave in such situations, I feel like the only thing I really learned is that I behave in all the right ways for all the wrong reasons. I've almost died more than a few times. I've stood on top of hidden IED's, as trucks passed by, mere inches from rolling over the pressure plates which would have triggered explosions that probably wouldn't even leave enough of a dental record to identify me with. I've had rocket propelled grenades air burst over my head, or miss the vehicles I was riding in by less than a foot. In firefights I've watched rounds from AK-47's and PKM's kick up dirt right in front of my face as they impacted the ground around me, as I returned fire, or maneuvered to better cover. I never froze up, I never hid, or ran away from the fights. I located the enemies' positions and lit them up like Christmas trees. And honestly, it wasn't such a big deal. And therein lies the problem. I mean really, how can almost dying not be a big fucking deal? I mean, my friends being the most important part of my life, I had to act as I did, so I understand not being surprised at myself, but I should have still had that rush of adrenaline. That вЂњHoly fucking shit I can't believe we made it through that okвЂќ feeling. But it was conspicuously absent. And the obvious answer as to why, is that my life doesn't really mean all that much to me. Which is really what I proved to myself. While my friends are without a doubt the most important part of my life, they don't really have very stiff competition. It turns out I'm willing to risk my life for a lot of things. Like to save a little bit of time by cutting corners I really shouldn't (only when no one else is put at risk mind you), or because I'm bored, or... whatever. You get the idea. And like I was saying earlier, it's all your fault. I remember sitting in a concrete bunker behind a M2 .50 calibur machine gun, manning the Entry Control Point at the FOB on guard duty, on a day I was supposed to have had off, thinking about the deployment, and what I would do after it. It was striking, even at that point, how lucky I had been. It was more striking how many of my friends hadn't been so lucky. There had been too many nights saluting helicopters, lifting off into the night, after we had loaded them with the caskets holding our brother's remains. Too many days securing landing zones so that the Medevac birds could lift our wounded out of battlefields, some which had been hot mere seconds earlier, and get them desperately needed medical attention. And while all the shit happening to the people I cared about ate away at me, I was acutely aware of how unconcerned I was about the possibility of it happening to me. And that in itself held a certain peculiar, dim sort of terror. I thought that perhaps the problem was that my relationships with my friends weren't immediate or constant enough. Despite how much they meant to me, they weren't involved or integral enough parts of my life to make it seem that important to me. So naturally I thought what I needed was you. Someone who shared my life, and knew me as a complete person, rather than just a facet of my personality. The problem is, of course, that I have absolutely no idea who you are or where to find you. I remember promising myself, while I gazed out at a distant mountain range, wreathed in dust which the wind had kicked up, and would eventually carry right into my face, that if I made it back home in one piece, I would scour the Earth until I found you. Because, I mean, it's a tab bit terrifying, sort of unthinkable that I could let myself come over here, without ever having met you. How can a person go off and take these insane risks, and leave something that important undone? And I did try, when I got back. Not as urgently, or thoroughly as I should have, or apparently needed to, I guess. But it turns out you aren't really that important to me either. As I'm already considering transferring units so I can deploy to Afghanistan again, almost a year ahead of schedule. And for what? Mainly because I don't like my boss, and would, apparently, be willing to risk my life, and any potential relationship we might have together just to get away from him. Even when you throw in the fact that there's no gaurantee my new boss would be any better. So where does that leave me? Love MC YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY IвЂ™M MORE CRAZY WHEN YOUвЂ™RE NOT AROUND TO MAKE ME CRAZY THEN I HAVE TIME TO THINK ABOUT WHY YOU MAKE ME CRAZY IвЂ™D RATHER BE CRAZY THAN NOT CRAZY SO IF SOMEONE IS GOING TO MAKE ME CRAZY IвЂ™D RATHER IT BE YOU Copyright В© 2012 Thank you to all who contributed. http://www.lovelettersanonymous.com