I, Myself

My Beloved,

I no longer know how to gather the scattered words of longing, how to break them open and gather them again; yet feeling itself lives only when it is spoken—isn't that so?

To love oneself first—that is the condition of all tenderness. Am I not you? And if I am not, then how do you dwell within me so much more than I dwell within myself?

I can say with certainty: however far I am from you, you are precisely that near to me.

Do not let the rot set in between me and myself. Be mine, even as I remain my own.

Exist as you will, but exist.

Thus,
I