When I began to read your letter my heart stopped, literary
the friend that dropped the letter in my lap found me
on the ground some minutes later and was able to revive me
with a quick Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
and said that our orders were to stay ready for deployment
and if I had the time to lie down and sleep I also had the time to clean the latrines before we soon are of on another night patrol and then he managed no more before he laughed with relief but I’m not laughing anymore Jane, really I’m not, I’m devastated.

You were the light of my life and I’m not able too
and I don’t even want to understand this…
except it is your voice and your words and I’m
so sad... I need to take a break.
I’ll continue later.

The march didn’t help at all; I almost ran out over a cliff
I didn’t notice that the sun was shining through the tree roof before I hit the edge, the greens plays tricks on you every day you try to find some continuity but it always change the same way as yesterday you might think and then you end up in a new camp or at a crossroad or find a fresh machete used on the underbrush and you start to wonder
what you can rely on… and I always think of you
and the summer we spent huddled close
in the Great Smoky Mountains and what you said to me
that night when the Red Oak fire never did burn out
and you still had that cold you got when we visited
the Laurel Falls and you found that thing
which you would keep with you for as long as you lived
and you asked me to never forget - do you remember?

Because I still do.

But now you write this letter and try to reason with yourself and me and I’m utterly confounded that you don’t even mention the Laurel Falls or any other of all the memories we have shared together and what they mean to you, sorry meant to you.

It’s so hard to do this, to write these words as if you should still care, I can’t feel you anymore Jane, your slipping through my fingers just like that much dust and mud and dirt and you are water and life and light and all the good things with me, but now I’m not sure of anything anymore you were the greatest fundament in me and what I spelled out as something more than what I know of myself, you gave me breath and growth and life and I held you more dear than anything else in my life and I would have done almost anything to keep you there, but now you’ve written this letter and I can’t…

it’s later, and were back at the base again, I just got something more to say but there is no light left…

I once gave you something, do you remember? Can you still find it?
If you try?
Please try to Jane. It would mean the world to me. Please?


I never left you Jane.


John