Dearest Hilton Pen,

Hello, my love. It is me, Marr Madeline. I hope that the flowers I sent you earlier were to your satisfaction— I remember how you appreciated the roses you saw at the farmers market and thought I’d send a little bit of home to you. A beautiful bouquet for a beautiful pen.

All is well at the estate, the dogs have been grazing and mother sends her regards from her and father’s new beach acquisition. It is lonely in this house without you, but I’d rather keep this pain of temporary loss burning bright in my chest than to have a perfectly stacked pile of kindling that has never known the lick of our flame.

Oh darling Hilton Pen, I ache for your presence. I mustn’t play coy, even through paper I can feel your knowing gaze tear down every attempt at a fib. The way you smooth my rumpled thoughts and glide through this anxiety of mine puts me in such a state of relaxation that feels almost trancelike. If feeling your liquid mirror touch meant floating in the inky black pool of disquietude, then by God I’ll swim it.

My love, I must admit something to you. I am only a smidge hesitant to say, but we promised no secrets between us and for that I must stick to my word. This morning when I awoke, I felt… strange. If I could explain it, I would, but it was a feeling that couldn’t be compared to anything else. I found myself standing outside of your door with shivering shoulders and tremoring hands. The heavy wood of your door was warm, yet the metal latch was ice cold and seemed to draw a chorus of hisses from my boiling skin.

Tucked in sheets, polished bureau, dried flowers, this was the place that housed you physically. In spirit? I could not find you. Not in the bed, not in the drawers, not in the sweet smell of decay. My stomach turned, shouldn’t you be here? Is this not your room? Where you rest, dress, settle your material items for safe keeping? What a fool I was to believe that you could be in more place— the bastard of time was as selfish as I, and he was **laughing** at me.

Hard ground roughens my knees, blotches them with pink blossoming red. My hands scrape for purchase in every crack and dip of the floor, the fat taking the brunt of the scratches and impact. I needed something, I _needed_ something, thoughts were racing too fast to catch as I dragged myself across the ground.

_Where are you?Where are you?Where are you?Where are you?_

The wooden chest. **Your** wooden chest. A catch all for your every thought, action and reaction, all you ever were and will be. I’d watched a few times when your back was turned, when I’d come to your room in the late hours of the night, just to catch the tiniest glimpse of you. In those darkened times, I could remember sitting on your sheets and listen to you talk as you paced the room and idled your hands. Graceful hands that would move to discard an outer layer of clothing, a cloth swiped upon your brow, maybe even a tunic if I was especially smiled upon by some divine being.

_ Is that alright?_ You would ask, cloth removed and cast away so that only your bottom half remained decent. _Of course,_ I’d reply,_ is it… not? _Kind smile, a few steps closer to my bedside position so that I might have craned my neck an inch or so. You— still standing tall and unmoving— with a look in your eyes that displayed a gentleness and understanding. If there is a God out there that I might one day meet, I should like to ask him if this was meant to be heaven or hell.

_ Of course_, you replied with an earnestness that could crack stone and a shift in body, _isn’t it? _Close, so close to touch, close enough to count the lines of your face and ridges of your teeth. That’s when you had come over me, crashing like the waves of the sea we’d visited last solstice, enveloping and choking and utterly delicious. I’d always been warned of being pulled out to sea, getting caught in a current and dragged down to drown. But with you, I wasn’t just swallowed whole by the rush of your surf— I joined you. There was no choking of salt water filling lungs, flailing for air, yanked this way and that with no say in the matter. There was only us, breathing in and out, nothing more.

Drying off from our seafaring adventure, I remember the chest. Our anchor. My anchor, my savior, my you. Now in front of me— this is what I needed. I clung to the wood and grasped at its edges to pull it open and reveal what I so desperately needed. It was as if you had run right through me. It was like you were pressed into my side, your head in my lap, hands on my face, in my hair, your scent, you you you you _you_.

I needed you. I pulled from the chest— I know my darling, I _know_ that you prefer things orderly but please forgive me for my situation. You must understand how I drag each article from its designated box and run each texture over my skin, across my face, and across the ground. At a certain point, I’m almost certain a pair of your bloomers acted as a helmet for me. If you must know, they were the favorite pair I always love seeing you wear.

The surroundings of your very essence was intoxicating darling, I mean really. It should be a crime to be this delicious. Shall I lock you away and keep you all for myself? My head turning from turmoil to bliss sent me flat to the floor, grasping onto any fabric I could and deeply breathing in your smell. In and out, in and out. Curled up like a babe, covering myself in your worn garments, there was nothing else. You were with me, that unknown ache in my being soothed from a surge to a babble to a murmur to nothing at all.

Now, how much time I spent in your chambers that day? … You know I’ve never been good with time. Please do come back soon my love, I miss you terribly and can only cuddle your dirty laundry for so long. I much prefer the real thing.

Forever with all my love,

Marr Madeline 💋