Letters

I’ve been keeping all the letters I wrote to you,
Each one a line or two,
I’m fine baby how are you?
But I know that its just not enough
My words are cold and flat and you deserve more than that

He was writing that letter for the hundred time now. Every time he tried to put different words on the paper, every time he tried to explain things differently. He could never reach the end of the letter, he could never complete it, cause something or someone always demanded his attention before he could.

There was so much he wanted to tell her but the words didn’t come out right. He was a completely new person now from when he had met her, he wondered if she would still understand, if she would notice the changes at all. She is waiting for him she had said in the last letter, he had read it over and over. She was waiting for him and that was all the reassurance he needed but even as he was writing to the love of his life, words failed him.

The first time he tried, he wrote about the life he was leading, the routine and the funny stories that he knew she wouldn’t understand , you had to be there to get the jokes. The next time he tried to ask about her, and how she had been but he didn’t think that was any good either. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him but he wondered if that was the right thing to do, what if he didn’t make it, what if he didn’t survive this? Would it be fair to keep her waiting? Just when he had put the letters away he heard the first gunshot of the night, he had to rush. He dressed and armed himself in a hurry and within seconds he had joined his troop. One of them had been shot, the enemy had attacked at night even when they had agreed not to. You could never trust them.

It was his dream to join the army, he had aced the entrance exam and was recommended by the entire panel after his interview. He had met her only days before his final interview and he had to report for the training only a month later. That was the best month of his life, they had spent every waking moment together.  He was her first love and she was going to be his last. Once the firing ceased he was back in his billet, this time determined to write something for her, he used to write poetry in his training days and sing them to her over the billet phones even when his friends hovered for their turn to make a call. He imagined her smiling when she would receive the letter and it brought the most radiant smile on his face too. He wrote:

I know I haven’t written to you for long , and I apologize, there is no time here but believe me when I say I have tried many times to write to you. I am fine and I hope you are too. There are days I really miss being with you and want to just run back to you but I chose this for myself and I must see it to the end. 

You are the most beautiful person I have known, and the thought that there is someone like you waiting for me when I’m back is what keeps me going each day over here. I need to go now the Chief has asked for me , I love you.

No poetry ever written,

Could adequately capture,

What your presence

Has done to my life.

Love, Me

Sidenote:  I always want to write a series but no theme/story ever appealed to me. I am trying again with this, it is the only piece I have written so far and more is to follow. Sometime from his point of view and sometimes from hers.