Peeping Tom
Lover's luck
Exhibit B: A collection of letters left in and around the garden of 45 Pollett Avenue between the 9th of April and the 13th June 2008.
April 9th
If this letter makes it to you, then I am a far more courageous person than I thought myself to be.
I love you.
You don’t know who I am, and I’m sorry that I’m not brave enough to tell you that, but I just want you to know that there’s someone out there who thinks you’re the most beautiful thing on earth.
Hope this makes your day,
X
April 16th
Jacob,
I saw you out on the doorstep on Monday night. I just happened to be passing through the park, and I saw you through the bushes in your back garden. I’m sorry I watched you, but I wanted you to know that I wanted to comfort you the whole time. I guess you were kicked out. You never struck me as a rebel.
Don’t worry that I know your name. I knew you before this. Maybe you remember me? But then, how could you, if I don’t tell you who I am? Sorry. Don’t think me a creep. Just know that someone adores you.
X
April 20th
Jacob,
You almost caught me on Friday. I don’t know if you knew or not. You came out of nowhere, it seemed, and suddenly you were metres away, and I almost had a heart attack. I doubt that you could have missed me, seeing as how I must have made such a commotion in the undergrowth, and it shook me enough to scare me away until this morning. I looked all around, as far as I could, but I couldn’t find the envelope or piece of paper that I’m sure I saw in your hand when I saw you on Friday. Maybe there wasn’t one, I don’t know, I only saw you fleetingly, but I hoped all of yesterday that it had been a reply for me. Just something to let me know you receive these. I don’t know, you see, because I’m leading myself to believe that letters intended for someone can disappear from hedges by other means than by being picked up by those they are intended for.
P.S I had forgotten what it was like to see you so close to. I’d much like to once more, soon, and I promise you that whatever the circumstances, it’ll probably succeed in giving me a heart attack.
Yours,
X
May 3rd
Jacob,
This is yours. You can keep it. I give you the rights to it – I owe you so much.
If asked to wish one thing, I would –
to be sat on your shoulder
and see you in all of your season’s extremes
temperate child of the suburbs.
In a ten square garden I only see
as much as my lover’s luck lets me.
If asked to give you up, I could –
but you would have to dispatch me
No other hand could send me hence
than the one person’s judgment I crave.
From metres I see you, a work of art,
as much as my lover’s luck lets me.
If you asked me, I would leave my home
and leave the world you stand on
but I confess I’d be hesitant unless
you stayed with just one hour.
I settle for less than I wish for, because
I know not if this lover would let me –
I do nothing but watch and make wishes,
but I’d be your world if you let me.
X
May 13th
I’m sorry if I come across too strong in my last message. That poem, I suppose, was uncalled for. I wrote it under the influence of a large amount of drink, and had to imbibe more to convince myself to deliver it. I suppose there’s no pretending I have any other intention towards you now – there’s no explaining away that my feelings for you are intense but platonic. They aren’t platonic. It’s potentially problematic, as you’ll realise if you’ve caught a glimpse of me at any point when I’ve let my guard down. I never thought I was that way inclined, either – but then I saw you again. This was a couple of months before my first letter. By this I know that this isn’t a shallow infatuation. It may be an infatuation, but it is not a shallow one. If what I felt for you was a shallow infatuation, then I would have given up by now, or at least begun to think I could, or should, perhaps live without you.
With all my love, however unrequited,
X
May 21st
I saw you with her. I suppose on these balmy evenings on the cusp of summer it is indeed very tempting to bring affairs more usually conducted inside (indeed, with the curtains closed) to the outdoors, but you could have spared me that.
Of course I am jealous. It may have been a way to tell me that we can’t be together. I know that. It tortures me. You torture me.
If not, then it will be news to you as to what I can see from my bedroom window. It overlooks the park, as do many others, but only a few would have been privy to your activities yesterday evening. Now you can try and figure out where I live.
X
June 2nd
I’m sorry I scolded you last time. The truth is, I can’t blame you for trying to show me the impossibility of what I wish for. Unfortunately, I realised long ago that I have a dysfunctional perception of reality. You could marry her and strap me to the alter with my eyelids held open with matchsticks so I could not look away, and I would still have hope. I hope too strongly, when I know that it is the enemy of sanity. I know that this is eating away at my sanity, but I also know that you keep me safe. You do not keep me sane, but you keep me from throwing myself into the canal on my way home from school. I have nothing else, you see. I wish there was some way I could repay you for what you give me, but it would be impossible, because what you give me is not something that can be given any value of price or actions easily – you give me a reason to live, and therefore you give me life. I feel it whenever I think of you, which is unhealthily often, I fear. You are a golden swelling and bittersweet taste at the back of my throat, and a warmth that courses through me – and then, when I confront the fact that you will never belong to me, you are an ache in my chest and my wrists, as if my very blood itself is rushing to join you because my body is incapable.
I am so scared. I am so scared that you think me a fool, or a lunatic. I am even more scared that you have not received a single one of these letters. But what scares me the most is that I will come to the end of my life and never have been in possession of you – never have heard you tell me that you love me, and never hold you for long enough so I can feel as if a time never existed when I could not get within five metres of you, or when I would lie awake in the night and wish until my chest swelled to bursting that I could know what it felt like to touch you.
X
June 7th
Maybe I should stop doing this.
I don’t want to, but I know that I am doing is wasting me away. I know that it’s useless. I’m not completely deluded. I hope too much, but I know that you won’t be coming after me and telling me everything I want to hear any time soon. I can fantasise about running away with you, but I know that it is never going to happen – yet, even as I write this, I know that a part of me still fights against that. That is the part that is keeping me sane. That is the part of you that is keeping me alive – the part of you that doesn’t even exist. Of course I know that the real you – the you that doesn’t simply reside inside my head and verbally draws up plans for us to elope while standing under my window in the dead of night – doesn’t even know who I am, and probably throws these letters away, or even hands then to the police. You probably don’t take any comfort in them, anyway. You have never thanked me for anything that I have told you. I am beginning to realise that you don’t give me anything, and yet I still feel indebted to you – is that what being in unrequited love is?
All the same, I am still in love, and any doubt I have leaves me the moment I see you. In not doing anything – perhaps in not even being aware of me – you still keep me alive. And it still hurts.
Perhaps you are just as bad for me as a drug – after all, a drug cannot reciprocate the need that you feel for it. It is passive, but it can be your life.
X
June 11th
I’m sorry.
June 13th
I heard about what happened to her. What happened to Kelly. I’m so sorry.
I should stop this. If I cannot tell the truth to you, I cannot tell it to anyone – but then, the latter doesn’t surprise me under the circumstances.
I’m leaving home. You won’t hear from me anymore. I can’t stand to look at you after what I have done. They will track me down, because I didn’t cover my tracks – I live by my heart and not my head, and this time it led me to a fatal error. Unfortunately, I no longer have a heart (you may find it, if you please, in every scrap of paper I left in that hedge for you, and in every footprint I covered after a stint crouched in the undergrowth, watching you read on your patio. It’s on your property. You own it now. Perhaps it will make up for Kelly’s loss – but I guess not). This leaves me in an ominous position – I am to make a journey with no destination, with the law on my trail, without a heart and with a head that never served me all that well in the first place. I’ll give myself two weeks, because I am hopeful. After two weeks, please assume me dead so that you may find it easier to forgive me. If I live past eighty, then I will never forgive myself, so perhaps you could grant me this undeserved grace, so as not to bear me to hell as soon as I hit the icy water or the pavement from a fist or the bonnet of a motor going 80mph. My declarations of love for you can do nothing either way now - except, perhaps, to convince you that what I did was not because I am evil. It was because I am young, stupid and completely possessed by this new and strange and wonderful experience of being in love.
Unless we never meet,
Always at your shoulder,
X
April 9th
If this letter makes it to you, then I am a far more courageous person than I thought myself to be.
I love you.
You don’t know who I am, and I’m sorry that I’m not brave enough to tell you that, but I just want you to know that there’s someone out there who thinks you’re the most beautiful thing on earth.
Hope this makes your day,
X
April 16th
Jacob,
I saw you out on the doorstep on Monday night. I just happened to be passing through the park, and I saw you through the bushes in your back garden. I’m sorry I watched you, but I wanted you to know that I wanted to comfort you the whole time. I guess you were kicked out. You never struck me as a rebel.
Don’t worry that I know your name. I knew you before this. Maybe you remember me? But then, how could you, if I don’t tell you who I am? Sorry. Don’t think me a creep. Just know that someone adores you.
X
April 20th
Jacob,
You almost caught me on Friday. I don’t know if you knew or not. You came out of nowhere, it seemed, and suddenly you were metres away, and I almost had a heart attack. I doubt that you could have missed me, seeing as how I must have made such a commotion in the undergrowth, and it shook me enough to scare me away until this morning. I looked all around, as far as I could, but I couldn’t find the envelope or piece of paper that I’m sure I saw in your hand when I saw you on Friday. Maybe there wasn’t one, I don’t know, I only saw you fleetingly, but I hoped all of yesterday that it had been a reply for me. Just something to let me know you receive these. I don’t know, you see, because I’m leading myself to believe that letters intended for someone can disappear from hedges by other means than by being picked up by those they are intended for.
P.S I had forgotten what it was like to see you so close to. I’d much like to once more, soon, and I promise you that whatever the circumstances, it’ll probably succeed in giving me a heart attack.
Yours,
X
May 3rd
Jacob,
This is yours. You can keep it. I give you the rights to it – I owe you so much.
If asked to wish one thing, I would –
to be sat on your shoulder
and see you in all of your season’s extremes
temperate child of the suburbs.
In a ten square garden I only see
as much as my lover’s luck lets me.
If asked to give you up, I could –
but you would have to dispatch me
No other hand could send me hence
than the one person’s judgment I crave.
From metres I see you, a work of art,
as much as my lover’s luck lets me.
If you asked me, I would leave my home
and leave the world you stand on
but I confess I’d be hesitant unless
you stayed with just one hour.
I settle for less than I wish for, because
I know not if this lover would let me –
I do nothing but watch and make wishes,
but I’d be your world if you let me.
X
May 13th
I’m sorry if I come across too strong in my last message. That poem, I suppose, was uncalled for. I wrote it under the influence of a large amount of drink, and had to imbibe more to convince myself to deliver it. I suppose there’s no pretending I have any other intention towards you now – there’s no explaining away that my feelings for you are intense but platonic. They aren’t platonic. It’s potentially problematic, as you’ll realise if you’ve caught a glimpse of me at any point when I’ve let my guard down. I never thought I was that way inclined, either – but then I saw you again. This was a couple of months before my first letter. By this I know that this isn’t a shallow infatuation. It may be an infatuation, but it is not a shallow one. If what I felt for you was a shallow infatuation, then I would have given up by now, or at least begun to think I could, or should, perhaps live without you.
With all my love, however unrequited,
X
May 21st
I saw you with her. I suppose on these balmy evenings on the cusp of summer it is indeed very tempting to bring affairs more usually conducted inside (indeed, with the curtains closed) to the outdoors, but you could have spared me that.
Of course I am jealous. It may have been a way to tell me that we can’t be together. I know that. It tortures me. You torture me.
If not, then it will be news to you as to what I can see from my bedroom window. It overlooks the park, as do many others, but only a few would have been privy to your activities yesterday evening. Now you can try and figure out where I live.
X
June 2nd
I’m sorry I scolded you last time. The truth is, I can’t blame you for trying to show me the impossibility of what I wish for. Unfortunately, I realised long ago that I have a dysfunctional perception of reality. You could marry her and strap me to the alter with my eyelids held open with matchsticks so I could not look away, and I would still have hope. I hope too strongly, when I know that it is the enemy of sanity. I know that this is eating away at my sanity, but I also know that you keep me safe. You do not keep me sane, but you keep me from throwing myself into the canal on my way home from school. I have nothing else, you see. I wish there was some way I could repay you for what you give me, but it would be impossible, because what you give me is not something that can be given any value of price or actions easily – you give me a reason to live, and therefore you give me life. I feel it whenever I think of you, which is unhealthily often, I fear. You are a golden swelling and bittersweet taste at the back of my throat, and a warmth that courses through me – and then, when I confront the fact that you will never belong to me, you are an ache in my chest and my wrists, as if my very blood itself is rushing to join you because my body is incapable.
I am so scared. I am so scared that you think me a fool, or a lunatic. I am even more scared that you have not received a single one of these letters. But what scares me the most is that I will come to the end of my life and never have been in possession of you – never have heard you tell me that you love me, and never hold you for long enough so I can feel as if a time never existed when I could not get within five metres of you, or when I would lie awake in the night and wish until my chest swelled to bursting that I could know what it felt like to touch you.
X
June 7th
Maybe I should stop doing this.
I don’t want to, but I know that I am doing is wasting me away. I know that it’s useless. I’m not completely deluded. I hope too much, but I know that you won’t be coming after me and telling me everything I want to hear any time soon. I can fantasise about running away with you, but I know that it is never going to happen – yet, even as I write this, I know that a part of me still fights against that. That is the part that is keeping me sane. That is the part of you that is keeping me alive – the part of you that doesn’t even exist. Of course I know that the real you – the you that doesn’t simply reside inside my head and verbally draws up plans for us to elope while standing under my window in the dead of night – doesn’t even know who I am, and probably throws these letters away, or even hands then to the police. You probably don’t take any comfort in them, anyway. You have never thanked me for anything that I have told you. I am beginning to realise that you don’t give me anything, and yet I still feel indebted to you – is that what being in unrequited love is?
All the same, I am still in love, and any doubt I have leaves me the moment I see you. In not doing anything – perhaps in not even being aware of me – you still keep me alive. And it still hurts.
Perhaps you are just as bad for me as a drug – after all, a drug cannot reciprocate the need that you feel for it. It is passive, but it can be your life.
X
June 11th
I’m sorry.
June 13th
I heard about what happened to her. What happened to Kelly. I’m so sorry.
I should stop this. If I cannot tell the truth to you, I cannot tell it to anyone – but then, the latter doesn’t surprise me under the circumstances.
I’m leaving home. You won’t hear from me anymore. I can’t stand to look at you after what I have done. They will track me down, because I didn’t cover my tracks – I live by my heart and not my head, and this time it led me to a fatal error. Unfortunately, I no longer have a heart (you may find it, if you please, in every scrap of paper I left in that hedge for you, and in every footprint I covered after a stint crouched in the undergrowth, watching you read on your patio. It’s on your property. You own it now. Perhaps it will make up for Kelly’s loss – but I guess not). This leaves me in an ominous position – I am to make a journey with no destination, with the law on my trail, without a heart and with a head that never served me all that well in the first place. I’ll give myself two weeks, because I am hopeful. After two weeks, please assume me dead so that you may find it easier to forgive me. If I live past eighty, then I will never forgive myself, so perhaps you could grant me this undeserved grace, so as not to bear me to hell as soon as I hit the icy water or the pavement from a fist or the bonnet of a motor going 80mph. My declarations of love for you can do nothing either way now - except, perhaps, to convince you that what I did was not because I am evil. It was because I am young, stupid and completely possessed by this new and strange and wonderful experience of being in love.
Unless we never meet,
Always at your shoulder,
X