V. Macnair,
Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?

I know the answer, to the question he's asking: yes. So many things I didn't say to you on Saturday. So many letters I haven't sent you, hm? But maybe it's not fair to try and say I know the answer, because he's asking about love, and I don't know whether I know anything about that. Same poet as before, in case you cared (ha! as if I'm writing a letter you'd actually ever read). This one's called "The Buried Life" which really summarizes the way I feel about everything pretty well, honestly. No need to even get into the poem at all when just the title will do. But the poem is nice, even if I'm not sure he's talking about me. Right after those lines it continues:

I knew the mass of men concealed
Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;

Which doesn't describe our situation at all, either. I suppose if I told you everything and was met With blank indifference, or with blame reproved it might be a little discouraging, but it'd be no more than I expected. That's the only reason I said as much as I did when we ended things, because I didn't think there was any danger that you'd care what I was thinking or feeling. I can handle that. But sometimes I wonder about those little moments — the look on your face after our last kiss or the way you touched my leg with your thumb last Saturday — and I don't know what to think of those, and that's why I wouldn't tell you.

Well, that, and it wouldn't make any difference, so there's not really any point embarrassing myself over it.

Maybe that just means I'm not in love. Or maybe Matthew Arnold, the poet, wouldn't think so, anyway. He's probably right. I'm probably not.

F. Greengrass