What Makes You Come Alive: A Marriage Letter

Dear Jim,

I so often want more of you. Forgive me (you've always given so much), but I find myself a little breathlessly expectant, lately: your headlights slicing through darkness, your tires crunching over gravel. One door slams; another swings open, and--as the children climb your legs and talk your ear off--I just keep waiting for my turn at you. You're always mine before it's all said and done,

but it's the "said" part I feel inclined to discuss, here and now.

I'm sorrier than I can say, Honey, that I had just assumed your love language to be physical touch, same as mine. It's always been so hot between us that I could hardly believe the "words of affirmation" result to that test, but then I reckoned: I am, after all, a woman of many words. I can affirm with the best of them.

(Maybe a man in need of words will turn to a poet surely as a woman in need of physical touch will turn toward a body she likes: that of a tall and broad-chested tackle, in this case.)

I thought back to 1994 and the scandalous sorts of words I wove into notes and poems and whispered into your ear just before turning on my heel and walking away. I'd guessed myself unforgettable for other reasons (no need to write those out in this forum, right, Darling?), but maybe it was the words. Maybe it was, and my heart leaps at that thought because I hope to have words--even if other things fade--until the very end. I am so much of so many words.

I think back to 2007, that fleeting "Lips of an Angel" time, then South Boston and your swinging wide the door, your eyes a well of desire and suffering at least eleven years deep. You needed something, clearly, and what I'd neglected to consider from at least one angle is this: we stayed up most all night but didn't make love; we talked and talked and cried and talked and talked, and in the morning, you were a new man.

And I'm sorry, My Love, for those angry times of wielding words as weapons and just as sorry for those missed opportunities to fill lazy, open spaces with words that would've affirmed, blessed, built up. I know what makes you come alive, now; get on home and breathe on me (you fabulous effing man), and I'll speak love in wave after wave.

Yours ever,
Brandee

Photo by Anjie Kay

**writing in community with Amber
**click here to read the marriage letter I wrote, last month