Rosetta, don't you see how your letters are filled with ambiguity?  The
same undercurrents of tone and mood, the dark mass of sometimes conflicting
emotions that seems to flow through you overwhelm any single message that
could be found in your words- you seem to be describing a relationship in
its death throes at one moment, eight months down the drain you say and in
the next you speak of hope for this being the relationship that lasts for
ever- though you already wonder if it will last the next two days.  You throw
away a box of memories in one paragraph, and in the next you question if
you will ever find a true soulmate.  You look at me in love, you say
there's a rule that you've only broken twice, but you don't shut off the
chance of me finding a way around, or maybe through, that rule.

And ambiguity is what the romantic relationship we had so long ago was all
about.  It was always hidden away, you were so reluctant to even hint at it
to your friends.  There was constantly at least two other people who you
were suffering waves of guilt for, becase of what you were letting
yourself experience with me.  You called me one time, it sounded as if, as
if you worried about if my feelings for you were real, or something- alost
as if you wanted to hear me say "I love you."  Things had me so confused
then that I was afraid to say that, even though I felt it, felt it so
real that it could burn a whole in my chest.  Then I was scared of love,
and I'm not now.  Mystified, startled, wrestling with, but not scared of,
not anymore.

You know my feelings.  How would I ever be able to hide them?  I have the
power of not acting them, of bottling them up until they rage themselves
into a slumber, but there they will lay.  So what was I doing when I asked
you to see a movie, was it just an attempt to form a pattern of platonic
friendship?  You might guess probably not, and be correct.  Nor was I
trying to seduce you, hopeing that my shear animal magnetism (ahem) would
somehow lure you to my arms and my bed.  What I might have hoped for was a
gradual re-estalishment of a comfort zone, a re-awakaning of a casualness,
mental, physical, emotional, that maybe had the seeds of something even
more.  A chance to someday be held close to you, close enough that I could
feel you breathing, a chance to have conversations that were, at times,  more
meningful than the ones we have now- but many times just talk, casual talk
between people who love, a chance to write silly love poems, a chance to
run a hand along your body, to marvel at the beauty and form of your areola,
a chance to drink tea and coffee and watch Star Trek reruns with you, to
take the time to wonder and explore the complexity of what makes you you,
to grok even?, a chance to comfort you when lifes frazzles and dazzles
become overwhelming, a chance to learn when to leave you to yourself, a
cahnce to sit in Goddard Chapel and catch your eye, just for a moment, and
see the faintest trace of a smile as you sing, a chance to make you laugh,
a chance to be in love with you.
	Is that so much to ask?  Er, well, yeah, I can see that it is.  The
prose is thick but the feelings are true.

	I dunno, Rosetta.  Last September, I stare in wonder as something
happens between us, and never understand how I related to the other people
you held romantic in your life, and tell you with all honesty that I would
accept that, that I would never insist on trying to capture your whole
heart or soul, but things shake and fall apart, with a bit of medical
misfortune that I believe now was blown out of proportion- even still, it
filled me with a sick guilt and fear that I rarely feel the equal of.
Things are dark for a Spring, and then lighter for the summer.  I write
you letters, I send you songs and shirts that echoed how I felt. You-
almost reluctantly?- tell me enough, that you are not at peace with
romance.  A truce is declared there with romance, however, that September.
Later you say that this one person has managed to be everything to you, has
captured the whole of your imagination and love, has been every role that
you needed to fill.  The year passes, and at the end that relationship
trembles- you send me messages that, when mixed with a small amount of
wishful thinking, say 'maybe'- delicous, tantalizing maybe.  If Wally fills
all those roles still, if you feel that now any other romantic fancy would
be breaking a trust, if he is all these things, then I'm sorry for
interfering, and trying to make you feel things that you can't afford
to, and I hope that you to get through any trouble you may have with each
other.  But if there is any part of you that hesitates, if there is a
glimmer of a type of potential there, if through this incantation I have
awokened and moved feelings inside of you, I hope you could follow that.
But if not, tell me.  Either way, if I have made you feel something,
could you tell me about that at all?  I know this isn't the easiest way
for you to communicate, but the effort would mean so much, so much.

You know my feelings now, you probably have for a time, maybe a long time.
I don't know yours, and they run in so many more patterns than my own I
may never really know them, but jesus, I'd like to try.

						G'night, B'ooful.
						me.