To Redacted:

Because we were never so intimate that I saw strands of your hair on my pillow, I could see in you what the ordinary personals couldn't. My suspicion, though, is that you are the same with everyone, that rare and unaffected being so elevated beyond the norm that nobody can really understand your immunity to the human sorrows:  the jealousy, fear, anger of insecurity, that strange desire to have and own another human being where true ownership is unconditional love.

I'll always admire you from afar. Are you sure you're not a rare species of alien meant to inhabit and bring joy, bring benevolent strangeness to the world? I think you might be one of the best things to happen to it.

Your friend always,

Alan

I start to rise but then I look over at your peaceful sleep. I focus on your resting lashes, how they seem so perfectly in place. I wonder where you are. A childhood home with your mom making spaghetti, or a bicycle ride in Tunisia, or visiting the Louvre trying to figure out the meaning of life through the coy smile of the Mona Lisa?  Am I with you?

I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. For all of time, I wonder.