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      Please would you please can you please will you please could you please.  Why can't you see that every fiber of me beats, exists, breathes for you, or can you see it but do you turn away with your head reeling.  Why are you not here this summer while I am at my typewriter in this travesty they call Arctic nighttime.  Have I ever been so alone.  Have you ever yearned so much for solitude.

      I wanted this place for so long.  It took me two years to build, you know.  Look at it, look at this, oh, Frank Lloyd Wright would be proud.  I am proud, of course, but blood, sweat and tears only ever become your most horrendous burden.  My closest friends chose children.  I chose this. None of us are really happy.

      But you.  Why you?  Why do you sit in your parlor and eat coffee cake and see people from time to time, drink a glass of wine to wash them down?  I think about you and your crystal glasses and I realize that I have never asked you if you were happy.  I only ever assumed.

      Assumed.

      Once when we were twenty-seven and went to that restaurant in New York, oh what was it called, the name escapes me but that doesn't matter now.  I grabbed you by your tie and we made a pact, laughing at our cleverness and it started to snow and we walked into Whatsitsname Restaurant and Bar and spent the night wearing worn, off-color Russian accents.  Once I don't remember when we walked forty-two and seven-eights of a mile together, in the middle of the most beautiful place on Earth that I can't find anymore.  Once fourteen years ago when we caught moths together in the summer, crickets in the winter, God we called each other to listen to each other breathe because we couldn't sleep through all the chirping.  Late-night walks drives bike rides hikes for a lark, or for a very early breakfast.

      You never let me photograph your face and I developed so many useless photographs of you that I kept and I strung all the negatives to my wall.  I couldn't get your face so I concentrated on your wrists, your neck, your hands.  God why did you never touch me with those hands.  My cheek, my lips, they longed for what they wouldn't, couldn't get, and so did I.

      I want to get married here.  Far too late at night in the snow far away from every goddamn person so I don't have to face thousands of people.  I'm sorry that I didn't come to your wedding.  I'm sure it was beautiful.  Flowers, family, honored guests, people you didn't know.  I'm sure she was beautiful.

      The divorce, I think, was your idea.  Or at least, for lack of knowledge, I imagine it that way.  You walking up to her as she turns her cheerful rosy face up for a kiss and you saying I can't do this anymore.  I need to see this world, I need to see myself reflected in every goddamn sea from here to the Aegean, you have to let me go.  And she cries and the life inside her cries and she cuts the umbilical cord and you get papers and train tickets and you are gone baby gone.  I can never imagine a fight.  I tried once and then she turned into me and I couldn't stop crying for a day.  I set up my paints and drew us and I couldn't bear to see it in my house so I mailed it off to you.  I imagine it hanging crookedly in your messy room, but if it's not, please allow me my ignorance.  Please don't let me be the wiser about its actual location in a stranger's apartment or a junkyard.  That is too much for these weak bones to handle.

      I once wrote to your sister and she sent me back a plant.  It wasn't exactly what I'd expected, so I sent her a painting of the plant.  And she sent me a butterfly and I couldn't believe it, I got drunk, so drunk, please dear God never tell her I had to sell the damned thing with the pin inside its little body.  I stopped writing her but she keeps writing me and I have read all of her letters.  I can't think of what to say.  God to be someone whom you love.  God to not be afraid of losing you by loving you.  What a beautiful life that girl must lead and I hope you realize how lucky she is.  I wish I could find something to say to her.  I wish I could find something to say to everyone.

      I write people sometimes.  Write them letters.  I find random addresses in the phonebook and I write anonymous letters and tell them how much I love you.  And I don't know if anyone has ever shown you one of these letters yet.  It's not time, after all.  Time is when it's too late and you will thank God that I didn't tell you before.  I will draw on small bills, mail out paintings, throw bottles with love notes into the sea.  Please will you please find one after I am gone.  This night is too bright and I will wait until the return of winter and the long-awaited setting of the ever-constant sun.

Description
      Please would you please can you please will you please could you please.  Why can't you see that every fiber of me beats, exists, breathes for you, or can you see it but do you turn away with your head reeling.  Why are you not here this summer while I am at my typewriter in this travesty they call Arctic nighttime.  Have I ever been so alone.  Have you ever yearned so much for solitude.

      I wanted this place for so long.  It took me two years to build, you know.  Look at it, look at this, oh, Frank Lloyd Wright would be proud.  I am proud, of course, but blood, sweat and tears only ever become your most horrendous burden.  My closest friends chose children.  I chose this. None of us are really happy.

      But you.  Why you?  Why do you sit in your parlor and eat coffee cake and see people from time to time, drink a glass of wine to wash them down?  I think about you and your crystal glasses and I realize that I have never asked you if you were happy.  I only ever assumed.

      Assumed.

      Once when we were twenty-seven and went to that restaurant in New York, oh what was it called, the name escapes me but that doesn't matter now.  I grabbed you by your tie and we made a pact, laughing at our cleverness and it started to snow and we walked into Whatsitsname Restaurant and Bar and spent the night wearing worn, off-color Russian accents.  Once I don't remember when we walked forty-two and seven-eights of a mile together, in the middle of the most beautiful place on Earth that I can't find anymore.  Once fourteen years ago when we caught moths together in the summer, crickets in the winter, God we called each other to listen to each other breathe because we couldn't sleep through all the chirping.  Late-night walks drives bike rides hikes for a lark, or for a very early breakfast.

      You never let me photograph your face and I developed so many useless photographs of you that I kept and I strung all the negatives to my wall.  I couldn't get your face so I concentrated on your wrists, your neck, your hands.  God why did you never touch me with those hands.  My cheek, my lips, they longed for what they wouldn't, couldn't get, and so did I.

      I want to get married here.  Far too late at night in the snow far away from every goddamn person so I don't have to face thousands of people.  I'm sorry that I didn't come to your wedding.  I'm sure it was beautiful.  Flowers, family, honored guests, people you didn't know.  I'm sure she was beautiful.

      The divorce, I think, was your idea.  Or at least, for lack of knowledge, I imagine it that way.  You walking up to her as she turns her cheerful rosy face up for a kiss and you saying I can't do this anymore.  I need to see this world, I need to see myself reflected in every goddamn sea from here to the Aegean, you have to let me go.  And she cries and the life inside her cries and she cuts the umbilical cord and you get papers and train tickets and you are gone baby gone.  I can never imagine a fight.  I tried once and then she turned into me and I couldn't stop crying for a day.  I set up my paints and drew us and I couldn't bear to see it in my house so I mailed it off to you.  I imagine it hanging crookedly in your messy room, but if it's not, please allow me my ignorance.  Please don't let me be the wiser about its actual location in a stranger's apartment or a junkyard.  That is too much for these weak bones to handle.

      I once wrote to your sister and she sent me back a plant.  It wasn't exactly what I'd expected, so I sent her a painting of the plant.  And she sent me a butterfly and I couldn't believe it, I got drunk, so drunk, please dear God never tell her I had to sell the damned thing with the pin inside its little body.  I stopped writing her but she keeps writing me and I have read all of her letters.  I can't think of what to say.  God to be someone whom you love.  God to not be afraid of losing you by loving you.  What a beautiful life that girl must lead and I hope you realize how lucky she is.  I wish I could find something to say to her.  I wish I could find something to say to everyone.

      I write people sometimes.  Write them letters.  I find random addresses in the phonebook and I write anonymous letters and tell them how much I love you.  And I don't know if anyone has ever shown you one of these letters yet.  It's not time, after all.  Time is when it's too late and you will thank God that I didn't tell you before.  I will draw on small bills, mail out paintings, throw bottles with love notes into the sea.  Please will you please find one after I am gone.  This night is too bright and I will wait until the return of winter and the long-awaited setting of the ever-constant sun.