At arm's length

Dear John,

keep on keeping things
at an arm's length
because i can't stand the thought
of getting much closer
i worry i would ruin it
i worry i will screw things up
like i always think i do
in important situations
so i will just keep things
at an arm's length
so there's no chance
of us ruining it

Science vs Romance

Dear John,

i wish someday
in the past or future you'd ask me
to time travel with you...
i don't care about risks anymore.
and i'll admit
that lately i've been completely bored
with my croonin' stereo.
music just gets old(er),
like me.

while looking for a file,
i found this story i wrote for a friend's book
about the top played song on my itunes....
you make me want to stop working
on anything that appears to be
the slightest waste of energy,
and devote everything
to my personal work.
thanks for that.

i haven't really been into rilo kiley's music for a few years --
and i'm nowhere near as talented a writer as you --
but i thought you might enjoy
reading/listening... anyway,
i needed a damn distraction
from working;
today, it was you.

Falling

Dear John,

Because I can't seem to say it out loud... But maybe, I'm falling a little bit in love with you. Please don't ever leave me.

Franz Kafka

I am now going to ask you a favor which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well, this is it:

Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday -- for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them. For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don't want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that's why I don't want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you? Oh, there is a sad, sad reason for not doing so. To make it short: My health is only just good enough for myself alone, not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked.

If only I had your answer now! And how horribly I torment you, and how I compel you, in the stillness of your room, to read this letter, as nasty a letter as has ever lain on your desk! Honestly, it strikes me sometimes that I prey like a spectre on your felicitous name! If only I had mailed Saturday's letter, in which I implored you never to write to me again, and in which I gave a similar promise. Oh God, what prevented me from sending that letter? All would be well. But is a peaceful solution possible now? Would it help if we wrote to each other only once a week? No, if my suffering could be cured by such means it would not be serious. And already I foresee that I shan't be able to endure even the Sunday letters. And so, to compensate for Saturday's lost opportunity, I ask you with what energy remains to me at the end of this letter: If we value our lives, let us abandon it all.

Did I think of signing myself Dein? No, nothing could be more false. No, I am forever fettered to myself, that's what I am, and that's what I must try to live with.

Franz