Dear Arthur,
There's a firefly burning a hole in my pocket. A pocket filled with lint, sweet wrappers, coins, and words I could never say. Words that were too heavy to pull out when the time was right, and even more so when the time was wrong. Words that managed to somehow stitch themselves to the fabric of my being – content and resigned to live within this dark and dusty confine. There were so many words I wanted to say to you, I don't know how they managed to fit in my pocket – they must be in concentrated form where only the best letters get to stay. They live like a jigsaw puzzle – coming apart only when I go to stand or we go over a bump in the road.
But the firefly, you see, that's the problem. Soon enough the hole will be large enough for the letters to trickle through and unbeknownst to me, I'll go through my day dropping letters like breadcrumbs from a fairy tale until my pockets will be so light I'll float off the ground up, up, up and never be found again.
Unless, that is, if you were to walk behind me. Would you notice? Would you notice the lonely letters littering the ground behind me? Or would you rather notice the dullness of my hair, the way the grey doesn't seem to catch the light? Or the rounded tilt to my shoulders? Or the way my knee seems to lock every few steps and I start limping until I feel the muscles loosen and the pain disappears?
Would you bend down and pick up the letters, even when I know that your hips ache and your knees hurt as mine do? Would you do that for me even if you weren't sure if the letters would mean anything at all? Would you do that simply because they've been warmed by my body, their edges sanded from the decades of rubbing against each other?
Would you recognise these eroded letters to be the one true secret I ever held from you?
As always,
Merlin