Letters and Diary Poetry posted May 17, 2023

Chapters:

...14 15 -16- 17...

Exceptional

Affection from an impossible distance.

A chapter in the book Songs of Recovery

Love Letters

by K. Olsen

I keep no count of syllables or words to confine the letters I write you for when you are old enough to understand. Instead, I scribble until my ballpoints break and the shoebox lids no longer fit. I pour out rivers of affection and oceans of hope, as if from an ever-flowing inkwell.   I cannot breathe life into the dead, but I will write you stories of your father from the childhood we shared, and I will carry the pride of two to shower down on all you do when others let things fade into silence. Although I am far from you now, my thoughts do not stray from you nor all the tribulations you face.   I wish I could lift you into the sky and spin you until my arms are tired and say how much you've grown, how happy I am to see you, how lucky I am to be with you, but Life makes small my hopes and I.   So let this epigraph be your future: may you never know a love with conditions, may your challenges teach you growth, may your friendships flourish like dandelions with dreams carried far and wide, may you find wholeness and humor your most constant companions— and when you open each envelope, may you feel the connection and joy I bequeath in trust with every tear of distance I shed now.   With all my love, Auntie