love letters from ruby

2. ruby's love, according to ruby

darling

i thought i should come clean.

if i speak in my mother tongue or any tongue but i have not your love for myself, i’m just a noisy individual. even as observant and bright as i may be and having an unusual knowledge of my fellow humans and their wiles and i have not your love, i will be cheated and i will lose what i have and be stupid.

should i offer up all i have and also kill myself, it would be in vain, no matter what the purpose, if i did not have your love first, and if i had your love first, i would not do those things anyway.

my love is not always patient, nor is it always kind. i envy all who spend time with you and i love to boast that you are my guy, so i do get arrogant and i become rude when i do not get my fill of you, and i will NEVER get my fill of you, although i would like nothing more than for you to fill me until i can be filled no more...  my love insists on having its way with you, otherwise it becomes irritable and resentful.

(my love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but a white lie here and there is just fine, as we know. but my love, i know you do love the truth. as i do.)

my love will bear most things and my love believes every word you say to me. my love hopes beyond hope for more hope, our hope! my love endures everything that has to do with our love. everything else on earth will pass, it says, all that is known and all that is spoken and all that has been seen for the future. all, but our love.

i did not know the grown up love that is no child's play and i never thought i would quote from books, but when i was a child i talked like a child, i thought like a child, i reasoned like a child. when i became your woman i put the ways of childhood behind me. for that time, i saw only a reflection in a mirror, now i see you face to face and especially heart to heart. before you, i knew in part; now i know fully, even as i am fully known. please know me well too.

i already know you like i know the back of my hand.

i hope you can forgive me for keeping this from you up to now.

i will die, yours.

ruby