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The Orange - Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange — The size of it made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave — They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy. I did all the jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I’m glad I exist.

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Celia, Celia - Adrian Mitchell

When I am sad and weary When I think all hope has gone When I walk along High Holborn I think of you with nothing on

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The More Loving One - W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.

 How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

 Admirer as I think I am

Of stars that do not give a damn,

I cannot, now I see them, say

I missed one terribly all day.

 Were all stars to disappear or die,

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total dark sublime,

Though this might take me a little time.

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From Life - Shane McCrae

I do what old friends do

And love them anyway   we eat together at the Waf-

fle House on Saturdays and wait all week to die

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Imagine: A Love Letter

Word Count: 1,598

Author Note: Hello! I hope you enjoy reading this. At the outset, I have to tell you that I am trusting heavily in your suspension of disbelief. I don’t think there are any hard facts here, but if you think somethings don’t fit, I hope it’s not too jarring and you’ll allow it.

Background: You are a scientist working in the field of quantum mechanics, which is still in its infancy. A chance encounter with your favourite thespian (insert celebrity name/persona—I’ve just mentioned some in the tags, feel free to insert whoever you want) changes your life. Over the course of the next few meetings you fall for him. You write him this impassioned love letter in a now-or-never sort of moment.

Dear friend,

I begin by apologizing for the sheer heft of this letter. I can almost hear you shuffling these sheets, slightly puzzled.

On then to the next bit posthaste—the niceties. Are you well? I hope you are very well. And the show? I hear ‘To the Victor, the Spoils’ is doing splendidly, particularly in the cities. During our last conversation, I recall you had been worried that the story might not resonate with the urbanite. But I saw the papers lauding the play as modifying the very landscape of theatre. I am not quoting verbatim; rather, this is an amalgamation of the reviews I read. I admit I have followed any news on the play closely. The performance by the leads is also unparalleled, so I am informed. My heartiest congratulations to you and Eileen.

Are you amused? A creative arts neophyte such as myself taking such keen, expansive interest in theatre? Because of late I have been reading and learning. Not only about your play but theatre in general. And art. And music. And dance. I find myself a voracious consumer of all the arts. And I admit, this surprises me. I surprise myself. For the longest time, I did eschew the creative arts for the more ‘logical’ and ‘predictable’ field of the physical sciences.

This tectonic shift I must attribute largely, if not wholly, to you. I am fair that way. Your admonition—‘but what stops both from coexisting in a person?’—brought this shift. I find myself more interested in, for want of a better word, the imaginative.

However, my more particular, almost rabid, interest in this particular play is simple because (here I must admit to my drawing on every last bit of my reserve of courage, simultaneously bolstered by additional liquid courage in the form of that excellent wine you gifted me along with the plant) it has you.

(I have just re-read what I’ve written. Do you ever recall me being so … verbose? There was a time my being so taciturn had amused you. Well, I am trying to unlearn that. This letter, consider it a step in the remedial way.)

To the crux of the matter then: unbeknownst to me, unintentionally, though not at all regrettably, I have simply, undeniably, uninhibitedly fallen in love with you.    

In all honesty, once written down I thought those words would have more gravitas. But they seem flippant. How am I to convey what I can only vaguely describe best as an enormous feeling?

Now, I am not in the habit of falling in love. I am not sure how you are placed on the matter. So I find myself seeking solace in literature and poetry. It is comforting to know that I am not the first person experiencing this sickness.

Paradoxically, I find myself weighed down by the tremendous sorrow of not being the first human to experience this. Like Prometheus, that I could introduce humankind to such burning love! That I would be the bearer of this elation, that I could have experienced it first!

But I digress. The long of the matter is I love you. The short of the matter is I love you. The depth, breadth, height and time of the matter is I love you. I do.

Coyness as a course of action is suggested to me. I don’t wear coyness well. No success in my life can I attribute to coyness. So see me here at my most brazen.

Do you remember the first time we met? The Maharani of Chittorgarh did me a kindness inviting me to her gathering of such illustrious people. Her persistence at having me at the gathering if only as an ambassador of female intellectual might in a predominantly masculine field finally tipped the scales and so I went.

You were late, joining us during the last leg of the party. A successful opening night followed by celebratory drinks, you entered jubilant and cut quite a figure.

How you regaled the company with your theatre-related anecdotes! There was no one who wasn’t at least a little in love with you that night. Having spent the last year or so in rigorous research (and, as mentioned, not being too familiar with the field in general), I had not read about your return to and subsequent prodigious success in theatre. Therefore, imagine my surprise when you tell me that you have not only heard of me but also know of my work in quantum mechanics. You clarified that you were something of a dilettante and enjoyed keeping abreast of the happenings in different fields. I thought that was a difficult ask of a person to be expected to know something of everything. But you, very rightly I might add, told me that life amounts to very little without the continuous pursuit of knowledge and expansion of the mind.

You wondered if it would be too much of an imposition to clarify some questions you had. I am an exceedingly poor teacher. It is a grave failing of mine. But seeing you look at me so open and earnest and willing to learn, there was no other answer but yes, yes, and yes! Very prettily did the corners of your mouth uplift and your eyes did crinkle. I admit I could not remember the last time I was so enchanted by someone.

Was not fate whispering good tidings when you were there at the only other social engagement I had that season? Happily you declared that under my tutelage you had not only impressed those in the know with your understanding of the subject but that you were now taking an active interest. You had begun exploring my subject in more detail. You confessed to even having tried to understand two of my more recently published papers.

How did you find them?

‘Beastly enough to seek you out and demand an explanation’, you had grinned.

And I had laughed. And I was touched.

I recall then admitting to my paucity of knowledge regarding the fine arts. You were not unkind, only surprised. Taking my hands in yours, you had earnestly asked me to do you a kindness and pick up whichever playwright suited my fancy.

‘Read someone, anyone, who catches your fancy. I’d like to welcome you to my world as you have eased me into yours. It is a conversation I very much look forward to’.

I had. You opened up a new world. Had I thanked you for that?

Thank you, my dear friend.

Then of course the most beautiful congratulatory Serissa bonsai that you sent along with a bottle of wine after the publication of that breakthrough article. It occupies pride of place in my library where I am wont to spend most of my time. I have found myself talking to it several times when I am perplexed by something or need to ponder over something at length. While not the best substitute for you, I’d say most days we try and make do.

I went to watch you twice. I never told you that, did I? I was happy to find that the critics had not been superfluous with their praise at all.

While watching you the second time, during your soliloquy in the third act an incredibly profound feeling and certitude came over me. Your tormented lover’s words and the feelings you portrayed—elation, depression, rage, calm—it was make-believe for you. I in the audience lived those words. I sat there, the vastitude of the feelings washing over me. I was pinned to my seat long after the play was over. The certitude settled in my heart like a symbiont. And with love’s certitude came its faithful lapdog: hope.

Tell me, friend, how do I becalm that little one?

I know I am not a young woman, well, not young by societal standards. I pride myself on being rational. You, being you, and even independent of your profession, I am positive you have a bevy of admirers. In an attempt to exorcise these feelings, short of leaving the city permanently (which, considering the stage my research is at, it is almost impossible), this is the best option for me.

So I ask you to consider me. Consider me, my dear sweet man; see if you could consider me an equal and devoted companion. Let me recommend myself on the basis of the sheer magnitude of my love, which could not be greater if I tried. I have little experience in matters of the heart. There was a romantic blip in my life when I was around nineteen. Of course, in light of present evidence, I really doubt the validity of those feelings.

I take this opportunity then to subvert societal norms and myself offer companionship through the hallowed institution of marriage. I admit it is sudden and we have met but a few times. As a practical course of action, I welcome the opportunity to get to know each better over the course of a long engagement.

I am perfectly serious in my offer. Life affords us few ready-made miracles and fewer chances still to orchestrate these miracles. I am fully aware of the ramifications of this letter. But if I am to lose you let it be through bravery and not pusillanimity when it comes to love.

I leave the city this weekend and am away a fortnight. Could I count on some clarity by the time I return? And would it be wrong to hope that the answer is yes?

Till then I remain,

Yours and in love

X

[ohtheladyboner]

Poor child! poor little thing, setting out upon that world which is so cruel, which makes so small account of soft things and little things like a bit of a girl, carrying them away upon its stream, drifting them into corners, taking all the courage and the happiness out of them.

Janet: The Story of a Governess,  Margaret Oliphant

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Brought to you by: Nicola Cruz

in love with his music

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I’m tired Unspeakably of standing: Kiss me, and let — Let me sit down and take you in my arms.

John Berryman, from “Sonnet 82″ In: “Collected Poems, 1937-1971″ by John Berryman (via finita--la--commedia)

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“Her knowledge of love was purely theoretical, and she conceived of it as lambent flame, gentle as the fall of dew or the ripple of quiet water, and cool as the velvet-dark of summer nights.”

-  Martin Eden, Jack London

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Imagine II: Tom Hiddleston

Word Count: 606

It’s November and a terribly grey day in London. You are in the study of the house that you share with Tom in London. A giant window overlooks the street. There isn’t much happening outside on account of it being a weekday afternoon, the neighbourhood being predominantly residential and the incessant drizzle. The scene in the study, however, is in stark contrast to the gloominess outside.

The heating is on. A relaxed Tom sits off-centre in the lambent room on an ochre grandfather chair, his feet propped up on a slate grey pouffe. His arms are outstretched, yarn wrapped around them. His brows are drawn as he listens intently to your counterpoint. You are discussing something of global consequence—maybe the issue of e-waste dumping or possibly migration-related issues in Europe. Maybe you are exchanging ideas regarding the rights of women over their bodies or the more controversial aspects of racial politics. He adjusts his glasses intermittently. Several times he stops short of gesticulating when he feels strongly about something because he is mindful it will tangle the yarn.

Holst’s Venus plays in the background rather softly so as to not interfere with the discussion. A copy of Roland Barthes’s Fragments d'un discours amoureux is kept facedown on the centre table beside a now-empty cup of coffee. Earlier, he had been reading out snippets from the book. You were clarifying what you didn't understand; your grasp of French is weak at best. There is also an ashtray with a few cigarette butts, an occasional indulgence of his.

You are cross-legged on the sofa. On your lap is a baby blanket that you are almost done knitting, a gift for a close friend’s newborn daughter. It was Tom’s idea to knit one; he was excited about knitting part of it as well. He will, however, depend heavily on you as he has no previous experience. Coincidentally, the colour of the yarn he chose matches the blue of his eyes. You haven’t mentioned this to him, and you don’t think he has realised.

Before you were lovers, you were friends. Both of you have decided to forgo marriage in favour of cohabitation. The idea of children, at least at this moment, appeals to neither of you. So it has just been the both of you with the addition of a cat.

The conversation progresses to more mundane matters after he glances at the clock. Will he be having dinner at home before he leaves in the evening? Yes, he will. Is he cooking? Well, if you are okay here by yourself then he’ll just wind the yarn into a ball and go and prep for dinner. It’s fine by you. The yarn is promptly rolled into a ball. On the way to the kitchen, he places a hand on your shoulder and gives it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

Staccato conversation ceases entirely when you hear the tap running. Drawers are opened and shut, pots and pans are moved around. Then a low hum, and you catch strains of a song you think you’ve heard as Tom gets busy.

The drizzle has turned into a downpour. You’re hoping whatever he’s cooking he’s used up the mushrooms and broccoli. They will be past their “use by” date tomorrow.

A few beeps indicate that the oven has preheated. Then his voice, loud and clear—

“...your lips next to mine, dear Won't you kiss me once, baby? Just a kiss goodnight...”

You wonder if you should ask what’s for dinner. You leave it be. You don’t really mind surprises.

“...You and I will fall in love”

All is truly right with the world.  

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“I can’t tell you just how wonderful she is. I don’t want you to know. I don’t want any one to know.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (via the-book-diaries)

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Imagine: Tom Hiddleston

Word Count: 1,449

It’s the sound of a key jiggling and the door scraping open that wakes you. The effort to keep quiet and not wake you is laudable but futile. You find yourself blinking hard to rouse yourself.

You reach toward the center table beside you and grope around. You find your phone and turn on the screen. Two twenty in the morning. It’s a bit later than you expected. You raise yourself on your elbows, the throw that became your blanket these last two hours slipping off. Bobby seems to have heard the sounds as well and cocks his head slightly before bounding off to greet the visitor.

Seconds later the smug dog returns with his owner in tow. Tom stands in the doorway of the study, squinting slightly at the light coming from the table lamp near your head.

It really is a bit bizarre to find the corners of your mouth pulling into a smile at the sight of him. It’s been, what, a year and a half? You’re expecting these honeymoon-phase reactions to even out, lessen in intensity.

“Odd place to sleep when we have a perfectly good bed upstairs,” he is beside the sofa, leaning over you to give you a quick kiss on top of your head.

“How’s the ankle?” he motions toward the cast.

“It’s fine. On the mend. Better than when you left. Another week, I think,” you say, looking up at him. Tom looks tired. Well, it was a long flight, and before that, a hectic schedule—or at least what you could remember of it. Looking at the schedule a few weeks back all that had registered was a soup of places and dates. You’d given up trying. As long as there was a check-in message from somewhere in the world sometime everyday, you were okay.

He gestures to the sofa again and raises his eyebrows.

You shrug. You’d like to tell him the truth. There are only so many days before the novelty of sleeping diagonally on a bed wears off. By your count it’s two days. After that you begin to miss getting annoyed about his duvet hogging and his inexplicable habit of sleeping off upright, book balanced facedown on his lap, glasses perched on his nose, and the bedside light still on at 3 a.m. when you get up to pee.  

What you more than very much miss, however, is lying with your cheek against his recently vacated side of the bed when he religiously wakes up at 7. You miss spending your last few sleep hours in the pool that is him.

Too hard to put it into words.

“When’d you get into the city?”

“Flight got delayed. Inclement weather. And then there is that long drive home. I’m sorry I woke you up though. Thought I’d slip in, have a shower, make myself a cup of tea, and then head to bed,” he says, looking genuinely remorseful.

“I was intending to stay awake anyway,” you gesture toward the half-shut lid of your laptop. “It’s the medicines. They make me incredibly drowsy, and I suppose I nodded off when I thought I was just shutting my eyes for a minute.”

He lowers himself onto the plush gray carpet, against the sofa you are lying on. His eyes light up, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. He breaks into another of his easy smiles.

“I’m a bit happy to see you up, you know. I was afraid I was forgetting that look on your face when you’re just a bit mortified at having failed at doing something,” he says. He extends his right thumb and smoothens the crease between your brows before lightly touching your nose. He lets the hand rest beside you on the sofa.

“You look tired.”

“God, I am tired. I smell of airline. My limbs are stiff because flat beds are cruel to tall people.”

You’re looking at him speak. His cheekbones, his oh-so-famed cheekbones, reflect the light as he tells you his flight-related woes. They really do look like they were crafted by the Divine in one of their better moods. You remember someone or something…was it a Buzzfeed article or a Pinterest board?...deifying those cheekbones.

Of course, you came across this article many years before the opportunity to meet him even presented itself. That was only random possibility at one point of time. You admit to a passing crush on the man who caught everyone’s fancy simply because of how much he seemed to be a template for build-a-boyfriend. But to move in the same circles, let alone date him, seemed highly unlikely, nigh impossible.

That first time. You want to say you remember it vividly. You have an idea of the day. But if you had to tell someone the particulars, you’d have to lie. You have, in fact, several times.

But if you had to tell someone how you felt over the course of your interaction those first few months, that you are able to vividly recall. When you had exchanged numbers and asked him to call in case of any clarification after that first meeting, it was not so much out of any romantic inclination or professional courtesy but the oddest feeling that here is a man who resonates at your very particular wavelength in the universe.

He had called. With questions about work. These had mutated into semi-work affairs where your opinion on other things was asked and his opinions on things offered. Tom seemed to approach everything with an almost childlike curiosity, the greatest respect, and a liberal attitude. It never took much effort on your part to introduce him to new things. And you had to admit, the enthusiasm he showed for things was infectious.  

You found him expansive. You aspired toward his muchness.

Then you heard the project you both were working on fell through. Apparently, adapting contemporary short stories to short online series did not garner enough public interest. You wondered whether you would or should keep in touch.  

You did, however. As did he. As opposed to other people who you were interested in in the past, the absence of mind games was almost refreshing. In what seemed a sort of unspoken agreement, things between the both of you just worked out.

Of course, you both remained notoriously tight-lipped about the entire affair. Very few outside either of your immediate circles even knew that the both of you were together. It was only for the best. You relished the fact that your achievements were not overshadowed by your very (justly) celebrated partner. The absence of vitriolic comments regarding you on his YouTube videos and Reddit was a plus. He relished the privacy for the fact that the focus never shifted from his work and because it wholly avoided the publicity that comes with conducting a relationship in the public eye.

You’re pulled into the present by a barrage of messages that set his phone pinging. You’d been absently intertwining your fingers in his as he had been talking. The sound wakes you from you meditation.

You see him stare at his phone. A minute later his forehead furrows and his mouth is a thin, grim line.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

He’s quiet for a few seconds. He exhales, pushes his glasses up, and presses his thumb and index finger into his eyes—a gesture of frustration.

Watching him suddenly look so frail, so exhausted, so tired in that one moment really makes you want to bundle him up and whisk him away somewhere safe. You feel almost maternal. These are the moments when you want to stand between him and the big, bad world out there.

You do the next best thing. You take the glasses off his head, place them to the side. You wrap your arms around his neck. You feel a flush of heat where your arms are. You nuzzle his curls, damp from the light drizzle outside. For some moments the both of you just are.

Minutes pass. The silence is palpable. You find yourself resisting the urge to ask again. When Tom briefly checks his Twitter, you see “lokiletdown” is trending. You feel his shoulders slump further.

Maybe tomorrow you’ll fight the world.

For now you find yourself wrapping your arms around him tighter, your cheek resting against his. He is right; he does smell like flight—that odd mixture of canned air, flight air-freshener, and cedarwood.

Maybe today you get to be his hero in a more prosaic way.

You get up. Bobby yawns. Tom looks up. Smiling at him, you gesture toward the kitchen—

“I almost forgot but welcome home, darling. Now, how about that cup of tea?”

[ohtheladyboner]

Let Me Die A Youngman's Death - Roger McGough

Let me die a youngman’s death not a clean and inbetween the sheets holywater death not a famous-last-words peaceful out of breath death

When I’m 73 and in constant good tumour may I be mown down at dawn by a bright red sports car on my way home from an allnight party

Or when I’m 91 with silver hair and sitting in a barber’s chair may rival gangsters with hamfisted tommyguns burst in and give me a short back and insides

Or when I’m 104 and banned from the Cavern may my mistress catching me in bed with her daughter and fearing for her son cut me up into little pieces and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman’s death not a free from sin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death not a curtains drawn by angels borne ‘what a nice way to go’ death

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Profane - Ashe Vernon

the first time he calls you holy, you laugh it back so hard your sides hurt. the second time, you moan gospel around his fingers between your teeth. he has always surprised you into surprising yourself. because he’s an angel hiding his halo behind his back and nothing has ever felt so filthy as plucking the wings from his shoulders— undressing his softness one feather at a time. god, if you’re out there, if you’re listening, he fucks like a seraphim, and there’s no part of scripture that ever prepared you for his hands. hands that map a communion in the cradle of your hips. hands that kiss hymns up your sides. he confesses how long he’s looked for a place to worship and, oh, you put him on his knees. when he sinks to the floor and moans like he can’t help himself, you wonder if the other angels fell so sweet. he says his prayers between your thighs and you dig your heels into the base of his spine until he blushes the color of your filthy tongue. you will ruin him and he will thank you; he will say please. no damnation ever looked as cozy as this, but you fit over his hips like they were made for you. you fit, you fit, you fit. on top of him, you are an ancient god that only he remembers and he offers up his skin. and you take it. who knew sacrifice was so profane? and once you’ve taught him how to hold your throat in one hand and your heart in the other, you will have forgotten every other word, except his name.

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Love Me Little, Love Me Long - Anonymous

Love me little, love me long, Is the burden of my song. Love that is too hot and strong    Burneth soon to waste: Still, I would not have thee cold, Not too backward, nor too bold; Love that lasteth till ’tis old    Fadeth not in haste.         Love me little, love me long,         Is the burden of my song. If thou lovest me too much It will not prove as true as touch; Love me little, more than such,    For I fear the end: I am with little well content, And a little from thee sent Is enough, with true intent    To be steadfast friend.       Love me little, love me long,       Is the burden of my song. Say thou lov’st me while thou live; I to thee my love will give, never dreaming to deceive    Whiles that life endures: Nay, and after death, in sooth, I too thee will keep my truth, As now, when in my May of youth:    This my love assures.       Love me little, love me long,       Is the burden on my song. Constant love is moderate ever, And it will through life persèver: Give me that, with true endeavour    I will it restore. A suit of durance let it be For all weathers that for me, For the land or for the sea,    Lasting evermore.       Love me little, love me long,       Is the burden of my song. Winter’s cold, or summer’s heat, Autumn’s tempests, on it beat, It can never know defeat,    Never can rebel: Such the love that I would gain, Such the love, I tell thee plain, Thou must give, or woo in vain:    So to thee, farewell       Love me little, love me long,       Is the burden of my song.

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Love After Love - Derek Walcott

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

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from Doctor Drink, #1 - J. V. Cunningham

In the thirtieth year of life I took my heart to be my wife, And as I turn in bed by night I have my heart for my delight. No other heart may mine estrange For my heart changes as I change, And it is bound, and I am free, And with my death it dies with me.