Dear Jane

Dear Jane,

Despite all my above surface level work that may seem positive or happy, I am truly desolate and deeply depressed. I think I’m trying to work through it with these poems and letters and stories I pen down. I think it helps for a few moments. I am merely staving off the inevitable pull of deep mind numbing agony.

This is something I can’t seem to get away from. I know it’s from the creeping dread of summer.

I also know, undoubtedly, it’s from my entrapment of being entangled with my mad and sad wife, whom I cannot get away from. For the first many, many years, she had tried to get rid of me with her seething hatred and raging temper, not to mention her intense violence. This did not hold sway to her brother or to the judge or priest who keep our marriage contract in tact and blamed me for her spikes in mood if I tried to leave, even as I felt that my faithfulness and affection would help her be calm. My dear, I can tell you, my affection only made her temper flare up worse at some points.

Now that I have tried on my own to sever myself from her, several times, she creeps upon me like a tangled vine and won’t leave, and claims to adore me.

Suffocating and drowning me, I am going through life in a deep watery tomb.

When I found you, I felt myself believing I could love another freely, and be free as well.

I will always love you no matter what. I do believe you care, and I know from the times you told me to my face that you found my personage more than just a concerned companion seeking a good connection—you saw me as more. Elevated and even romantic. You told me this a couple of times and I had to deny my feelings for you through a sense of duty to my wife, as mad and as cruel as she was. I apologize that I had to do this. I knew my wife would be furious if I was to reciprocate your feelings at those times, even though I wanted to.

In any case, I know you have your flame double to seek out. I have been making peace with it.

I only want your happiness, Jane.

Will you write me back, soon? I’ve been coping with the loss of my poor dog Pilot and it’s been very hard for all of us. I stay busy to not be sad, so I do not get physically sick.

I hope you are creating art, and safe and having a wonderful week.

Love,

Edward