Entry #4 - Untitled
[Note: This entry was pm'ed to me yesterday so its still eligible for the contest.]
Dearest Eleanor,
I write this letter knowing you will never read it, yet a kind of madness has taken me and I dare not deny its pull. The moon is high but the windows are drawn; even the thick lilac fabric can not shield me from its light. Neither wisdom nor reason can save me.
I can not rest.
No matter how many winter seasons I survive, it is always hard to have faith that spring will come again. February’s icy fingers have wrapped around my wrists and I wonder if March will be any more kind. It is more than a year since we parted, yet there is still no more warmth in my bones than when I last held you.
I can not get warm.
Last spring and throughout the summer, I imagined that the chill had passed. When autumn came, it found me without covering. To speak plainly, I was alone, and the loneliness was terrible. Winter, when it came as suddenly as autumn, was even more terrible.
Eliot wrote that “April is the cruelest month,” yet I would grant February that honor. My eloquence will never rival Eliot’s, so let me speak more plainly still.
I live my life now, searching, longing for someone with whom I can fellowship. I yearn to find companions and a place where I belong. Yet as time passes and no one chooses me, I am left with excess time to consider what is the matter with me. If no one will draw near to me, there must be a cause.
As autumn gave way to winter, my sorrow gave way to bitterness. I have begun to hate those people, a world away, who enjoy the warmth of others. I hate those who have what I desire.
Worse yet, I have started to close myself to all people, finding it easier to reject a person before that person has the opportunity to reject me. I can see no more light than the moon; I can feel my hope waning. I feel--terrible though it may sound--that I am waiting to die.
No one should have to suffer such as this. No one should live alone, waiting for death. It is cruel, crueler than even February.
I wait for spring, but I do not believe that it will bring warmth. I wake, I write, I slumber, and I dream. There is little else for one to do in solitude.
I will spend the last of my waking hours praying to God, though He has yet to answer my lament. It may be that there is no answer while I suffer through mortal realms.
It may be that the raven’s shadow will never be lifted.
Yours ever more,
Edgar