Letters to Jon by Dezlboi

A Letter to Jon - Letter #2

Jon,

I'm quite sure you will never read this letter. I'm writing it barely 10 feet from you as I sit at this little desk in the hotel room and you sit over on one of the beds next to Adam, one of your teammates; but you might as well be a thousand miles away. Maybe the space between us would be better measured in years. Maybe you just don't feel any connection to me at all, I honestly can't tell.

I'm a mess, though I hide it well from you and the rest of the guys. I'm broken, like an old pendulum clock might be, with my cogs or sprockets rusted or fallen out leaving loneliness, emotional exhaustion, and a rather pathetic feeling of purposelessness inside this shell. The only thing that fills that void at all these days is the weekend days I spend out with all of you - and you in particular - but that's never a fix as it always ends too soon and I realize I wasn't fixed so much as temporarily numbed.

Right now you're engrossed by some television show about big snakes, which means I can look at you openly for a few moments without you looking back, catching me in the act of staring. I can't see them as well from this distance but I still love to look into those eyes of yours, brown inside around the pupils but blending to a beautiful earthy green around the edges. Your face is classic "cute boy", narrow with an angular chin but soft in all the right spots. Your blond hair is shaggy and getting long - I bet your mom think you need a haircut - but I think it's just right. I need to stop looking at you now. I've risked it too long already.

I don't know if you're into girls, or guys, or both. I would never ask - it wouldn't be my place if we were simply friends and with the relationship you and I have, it would be downright inappropriate. But you're soft-spoken, sweet, kind, and without a trace of macho demeanor, so I like to dream that just maybe you fall into my side of the attraction spectrum. I've seen you blush in a nervous but adorable way when someone asked you about having a girlfriend...does that mean you're embarrassed about the topic? Could that mean you're gay? Or maybe you have no experience with girls yet...it's not unheard of for a guy to be in college, and still be a virgin. Whatever the situation, I suppose I'm better off not knowing, either to avoid being impaled on the spear of disappointment or so I don't gather some ridiculous hope that you might be interested in me.

Because, truth be told, you seem to have little use for me at all. I don't mean that as a rebuke, and I'm sorry if it sounded bitter; I just mean that when we first met, we seemed to interact more and now, you hardly make eye contact with me at all, never mind starting a conversation. I know you're shy. I know I'm nearly a dozen years older. I know that's plenty reason enough for you not to have much to say to me. It still hurts, though, because I look at you and see the physical beauty that first caught my eye, and the spiritual glow that I glimpsed as I got to know you more. I would love to know even more - to sit and talk about anything, everything, music or biking or needlepoint for all I care. But that's not going to happen, I think.

You're laughing at something on the television now, and your smile lights up the room, or maybe it’s your eyes. Or the raspy-deep sound of your chuckle, a sound nobody would expect out of that slender frame of yours. That's a sound I want to hear when I talk to you; but for now I have to settle for hearing it on the sidelines as your friends or that stupid glowing electric box strike you funny.

So as I said, you'll never read this. I'd like to think you'd take news of my sexuality in stride and perhaps even accept my attraction to you as flattering and not too disturbing, but if I want to keep my job, nobody in the group can ever know; not that I'd be fired, but I think the trust would be broken and the vibe would turn decidedly awkward. I was hoping that writing this letter out would help me purge some of the feelings I have and make it easier to cope, but I think putting it all down on paper has just put a finer point on it all, exposed all of the thoughts that were milling about my head and essentially given me a laundry list of all the ways that I am a sad, obsessed little boy in an old man's body.

I'm going to end this here as I take one last glance over at you, drink in the vision of youthful manhood that you embody, and then suppress and compartmentalize all of these feelings one more time.

I love you, man, even though you'll never, ever know it.

-J

P.S. - I was going to change your name in this letter, just in case it was ever found by someone, but I couldn't come up with any other name that felt right on my tongue while thinking of you; I had to leave it alone.

Letter #2

I felt cold sitting sideways on the window-seat looking out over the front lawn as the last flurries fell gently from the light gray sky. I glanced about, looking for the patchwork quilt I usually kept on the bench but I had forgotten to return it last time and I didn't want to move from my seat, so perfect a vantage point for the serene scene on the other side of the glass. I shivered just a bit as I relished the relaxing Sunday afternoon without a single trace of the usual disquieting thoughts of the impending workday crossing my mind.

The boulders marking the end of the driveway sat like oversized, deformed cupcakes with freshly-fallen thick white frosting; the rough-hewn wooden fence wore a long perfect trail of snow like white mustard on an eight-foot hot dog. Another chill passed through me, though, as I pondered these winter culinary oddities and I was starting to think that I might have to leave my perch in search of a sweater or a throw when I heard footfalls swishing through the powder outside. The sound came from further down the street and I had to lean in close to the glass to see who approached, my breath gathering on the old glass panes, making it hard for me to make out the approaching figure. That didn’t matter though, I had a pretty good idea who it was.

A moment later, the front door opened, and I heard you call out a timid greeting - something I found both charming and amusing since you do it every time you come over, and every time, I tell you that I want you to feel as welcome here as you do in your own home. I answered and bid you to join me in the front room, and as you walked in silently, woolen socks padding on the oak floor, I was able to see you clearly, unhindered by fogged or frosted glass.

You were wearing the soft, bulky wool sweater I gave you, banded in several shades of brown. It looked almost comical on your slight frame, but it served its purpose well, keeping you warm and comfortable outside in the New England winter. Tan, loose-fitting cargo pants covered your legs but they fit your slim hips well, not looking sloppy like they do on so many guys and though I couldn't see it then because you were facing me, I knew they hung from your cute little butt in a most alluring fashion. You had taken off the matching knit gloves already, probably left at the door with your boots, but for whatever reason you had forgotten to remove the matching wool hat, pulled down to your brow but still letting a few locks of your brownish-blond hair peek out in the front. That hair...it was really getting a bit too long, shaggy in back and almost covering your eyes in front, but wearing it that way gives you an impish, rogue-like quality that's just amplified by your smile, and I was drinking in the vision of you like warm apple cider.

You closed the rest of the space between us after I waved you over and I turned my body around so my feet were on the floor, instead of pulled up on the bench beside me. I drew you in closer with my hands on your hips, and you straddled my right knee so your body was just about a foot from mine. Since you're shorter than me, you didn't tower over me in my seated position but you still looked down into my eyes, and I could see the tiny wet droplets on your hat and nose where snowflakes had landed and melted in the inside warmth, but had not yet evaporated. Lifting up my arms, I wrapped you in an embrace that heated me from inside as much as from out, and your arms wrapped around me in return. My earlier wishes for a quilt or sweater dissipated with the chill, and I breathed out a sigh of happy winter Sunday contentment.

I felt you pull back just a little, and I looked up to see you leaning down with your eyes half-closed and lips parted, seeking a kiss that I was happy to share. Your nose, with tiny droplets of expired snow, brushed past my cheek.

Have you ever walked outside in the winter as an icy drip fell from an icicle, perhaps hanging from an eve or tree branch overhead, falls onto the back of your neck? With that sort of jolt, you evaporated, like warm breath on a sub-zero morning. I awoke from my accidental nap, sprawled on the couch, my laptop still balanced precariously on my chest, and my cat poking my cheek with his chilly, damp nose.

I suppose the comfort you give me in the winter of my dreams is better than no comfort at all, Jon.