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''Years go by, will I still be waiting, or somebody else to understand, years go by, if I'm stripped of my beauty?' - Tori Amos, Silent all these Years (This version with poetry read by Leonard Cohen)

my dear, dear reader,

I'm writing to tell you about my love this week.

Leonard Cohen is my love this week. From the 'but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie'  to the 'you live your life as if it's real a thousand kisses deep'.  Listen to him read the poem of the same song here.

Listen to him again as he reads the poetry before this version of Tori Amos Silent All These Years, a song which made me run faster on the treadmill today while I listened to my own silent voice. 

I wondered if you, dear reader, had found yourself the girl who thinks really deep thoughts. After all.

dear reader, I'll waltz with you in Vienna, I want you in the Chelsea Hotel, I want you to dance me to the end of love. I would like to think that there's a god above. Would you like to think that there's a god above? Would it comfort you?

Is the moon swimming naked for you? If I asked you would you let me take you down to my place near the river?

Of course, dear reader, you are only a construct in my mind. A compilation, a frieze from my imagination, a mosaic; but if you existed I would write you letters on my skin, and you would kiss me as you read each one.

my dear reader, I wish you were real.

'It's just that it's delicate.' - Damien Rice, Delicate

First the train station, and now the cafe...

'It's been how long?' she says, '3 weeks or so.'

'21 days?' he answers as he picks up his coffee cup. She picks at her food.

'Since?'  She crosses her legs, sits tight, back straight, her body tensed.

'Since I first kissed you'.

'Oh.'

Head down in her cup of coffee she hunches her shoulders, avoids his face. The urge to run. Almost as strong as the urge to stay.  His left hand, thin wristed, picks at the cuff of his sweater.  

'Don't you have anything to say?'

'No, not really,' she says. 'I just never thought it would get this far. I usually run away before it gets this far.'

'Oh.'

'Does it scare you?' she asks, lifting her head for a minute and looking at his face, 'that I usually run?'

'I think,' his hand moves across the table to take hers, 'that it means maybe you don't know what to expect.'

I don't know you, but I want you, all the more for that.  - The Frames, Falling Slowly

They walk awkwardly to the metro, the tension splits the air, cold breathes into them. His hands in his pockets, hers around her torso. Then his hand, warm from his pocket finds hers and they walk hand in hand. Nervously.

His accent, lilting and warm, wraps around her while they talk about nothing.

Up the stairs to the metro platform, and they wait ten minutes for the last tram. The cold causes everyone to huddle, but they stand apart, careful not to touch. Their ears ring with leftover music, his blue-grey eyes frankly open into hers.

'You enjoyed that, you think?' he asks. 'A little bit of chemistry there, maybe?'

She looks wordlessly into her bag for things that aren't there.

Ten minutes run by faster than they seem. The metro rushes in, the platform blurs with people.

He pulls her toward him for a breathless kiss. The smell of smoke from the club, the taste of beer, the warmth of his mouth on hers, the taste of his tongue. Magical.

'Go', she says, unsteadily, 'or you'll miss your train.'

The metro pulls away and she looks for him on the train but she can't see him, can't see his face in her memory, can't remember his body.

He's gone.