I’m just a figment of your imagination, love. I’m not real without you. I can affect you, love, but I can’t touch you. I come alive and I dance for your eyes only, your eyes alone, love. Without you, I die. I don’t know a better way to say it—I simply die. Oh, things happen all right, but they’re only echoes, reflections of images that keep coming back, distorted; and there’s a hand that writes it all down. Wait too long, and I rot. Mirror reflections of a face that you never see, love. Every sense deteriorates, until anything that comes is dead. Thinking of you, love, the process is retarded, somewhat. But those thoughts are also echoes. I don’t like to talk to you like this, love, but I have to get you to give me a bigger kiss, so I’ll last longer, while you put me away for a time, until I see you again, love.
February 1971