The "Darling" Letters

A few months ago I happened across the folder in my childhood bedroom in Florida where I keep important or personal documents. There I spotted a card from an ex-boyfriend, noting the "my" he'd written before "Maris," his nickname for me, and the carefully drawn hearts and the "love." It was a bittersweet moment. I took in the card one last time and threw it away.

A sense of relief.

I think it's healthy to toss love letters from exes, especially if you're dating someone new! But I hang onto notes from my current boyfriend, even though I don't look at them often. (Hey, we talk every day!)

At any rate, when a friend showed me this poem, I was touched. Hope you enjoy it too:

The "Darling" Letters

Some keep them in shoeboxes away from the light,
sore memories blinking out as the lid lifts,
their own recklessness written all over them. My own…
Private jokes, no longer comprehended, pull their punchlines,
fall flat in the gaps between the endearments. What
are you wearing?

Don’t ever change.
They start with Darling; end in recriminations,
absence, sense of loss. Even now, the fist’s bud flowers
into trembling, the fingers trace each line and see
the future then. Always… Nobody burns them,
the Darling letters, stiff in their cardboard coffins.

Babykins… We all had strange names
which make us blush, as though we’d murdered
someone under an alias, long ago. I’ll die
without you. Die. Once in a while, alone,
we take them out to read again, the heart thudding
like a spade on buried bones.

-Carol Ann Duffy