




20 + 3 points
The Beautiful Letter by beverly penn
June 11th, 2006 9:29 AM
It's difficult to write a love letter that doesn't end in sounding either trite or overblown, but I tried my best. I had my husband give it a test-read, but he's always more than generous in his critiques of my creative endeavors. Nevertheless, I'd be flattered if I received such a letter, so...
I wrote the following letter by hand, the last sentence purposely left unfinished. I opted for the "one person finds it and, consequently, their mind is blown" version of the task, and so placed the hand-written letter in a copy machine at the nearby Kinko's. I figured this was sure to get into someone's hands before it would have had I left it in a book or a file folder somewhere. Also, the unfinished sentence gives the effect of the letter having been confiscated before there was time to finish it. That's the idea anyhow.
---------
J,
Another letter. I do not know if I will get this to you in time, but I will try. Everything is happening now it seems.
I asked you to meet me the other night, though I knew you couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) come. It was in my mind that you would set aside your conscience if only for a moment, break the rules. For me. Break your rules that keep you rigid and safe. Doesn’t it exhaust you? What energy it must take to keep everything in such an order; to keep everyone away from what lies at the center. (I feel I’m writing with rather profound distortion. Forgive me.) There are times I can truly hear you when you speak--the staggeringly beautiful tones in your voice, the tempered meter of your words. You have poetry in you, though you won’t admit it. Or perhaps you have lived too much, and it has all been burned out of you.
It doesn’t matter. None of that matters to me. I know precisely what should be left out, what needs to be erased, and I refuse. I leave it all in. Even the dream I had about you the other night in which I was standing in the middle of a magnificent dressing room; a large, golden tub in the center, filled. I had put on a silk dressing gown and was moving to the door to close it. You were on the other side, naked. You were going to enter the room when I said, rather forcefully, “No!” I closed the door and walked across the room to a mirror. When I looked in it, I was heavily made up. Ruby lips, heavily charcoaled eyes, a deep red rouge. I began to wipe my face. The reds smeared all over my cheeks and outside of my lips. Black ran from my eyes. I wiped my hands across my face over and over again until it was me that I saw in the mirror, undone. I returned to the door, opened it. You were lying in a fetal position, still naked. I told you that you could come in now if you wanted to. You did. Removing my gown and picking me up, you walked me over to the tub. With an incredible strength, you bent down so that I was submerged in the water, and then lifted me out. Again, you lowered me into the water and lifted me out.
You asked me a question that I haven’t yet answered. The answer is no, he doesn’t know that I love you. He is so kind to me, so generous,but he seems so empty, so dead to life. But you...it is there. I can feel it. I hope you
I wrote the following letter by hand, the last sentence purposely left unfinished. I opted for the "one person finds it and, consequently, their mind is blown" version of the task, and so placed the hand-written letter in a copy machine at the nearby Kinko's. I figured this was sure to get into someone's hands before it would have had I left it in a book or a file folder somewhere. Also, the unfinished sentence gives the effect of the letter having been confiscated before there was time to finish it. That's the idea anyhow.
---------
J,
Another letter. I do not know if I will get this to you in time, but I will try. Everything is happening now it seems.
I asked you to meet me the other night, though I knew you couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) come. It was in my mind that you would set aside your conscience if only for a moment, break the rules. For me. Break your rules that keep you rigid and safe. Doesn’t it exhaust you? What energy it must take to keep everything in such an order; to keep everyone away from what lies at the center. (I feel I’m writing with rather profound distortion. Forgive me.) There are times I can truly hear you when you speak--the staggeringly beautiful tones in your voice, the tempered meter of your words. You have poetry in you, though you won’t admit it. Or perhaps you have lived too much, and it has all been burned out of you.
It doesn’t matter. None of that matters to me. I know precisely what should be left out, what needs to be erased, and I refuse. I leave it all in. Even the dream I had about you the other night in which I was standing in the middle of a magnificent dressing room; a large, golden tub in the center, filled. I had put on a silk dressing gown and was moving to the door to close it. You were on the other side, naked. You were going to enter the room when I said, rather forcefully, “No!” I closed the door and walked across the room to a mirror. When I looked in it, I was heavily made up. Ruby lips, heavily charcoaled eyes, a deep red rouge. I began to wipe my face. The reds smeared all over my cheeks and outside of my lips. Black ran from my eyes. I wiped my hands across my face over and over again until it was me that I saw in the mirror, undone. I returned to the door, opened it. You were lying in a fetal position, still naked. I told you that you could come in now if you wanted to. You did. Removing my gown and picking me up, you walked me over to the tub. With an incredible strength, you bent down so that I was submerged in the water, and then lifted me out. Again, you lowered me into the water and lifted me out.
You asked me a question that I haven’t yet answered. The answer is no, he doesn’t know that I love you. He is so kind to me, so generous,but he seems so empty, so dead to life. But you...it is there. I can feel it. I hope you
At Kinkos! BRILLIANT. I am so totally stealing that.