An Alphabetical Exchange of Intimacy between Alfred and Oscar

An Alphabetical Exchange of Intimacy between Alfred and Oscar

My Own Darling Boy,

I got your telegram half an hour ago, and just send a line to say that I feel that my only hope of again doing beautiful work in art is being with you. It was not so in the old days, but now it is different, and you can really recreate in me that energy and sense of joyous power on which art depends. Everyone is furious with me for going back to you, but they don’t understand us. I feel that it is only with you that I can do anything at all. Do remake my ruined life for me, and then our friendship and love will have a different meaning to the world. I wish that when we met at Rouen we had not parted at all. There are such wide abysses now of space and land between us. But we love each other. Goodnight, dear. Ever yours,

Oscar

My Dear Darling Oscar,

Entangled in the string that affixes our souls are dense drifts of envy, lies and dashes of disgust that stigmatise our eternal bond. Though the world we live in boasts an ocean of romances, that ocean is as dilute as a cup filled with a salty solute and saturated solvent. While they struggle and strive to ingest their love, how lucky are we to have met in this birth, pure as lovers who do not have to pulsate the same energetic efforts to sustain our bond. Yet despite my truth to your, our burgeoning bond is shadowed by a dark cloud that is ready to downpour the droplets of a cursed misery. To you those droplets fell in the form of sweat and to me it fell as tears, tears from the decades of frowns, laughs and squints I faced when having to deal with the jarring judgement of society. As much as I pray that those dark shadowy clouds would disappear into the stratosphere, I am stoned by what I have experienced whilst you laboured in prison. I hope you forgive my reluctance to reconcile as you exemplify with the abyss that sits between you and I but please be aware that between that abyss, the string that holds my love for you, shall never untie.

Alfred

My Darling Boy,

I am more than aware of the multiple entanglements between the string affixes our souls or dark clouds that lures over our bond. Just like you, being released from Gao bears no value on my immaterial freedom as I am still subject to the wandering eyes, sinister smiles and piercing speeches of society. Yet I believe our love for each other vanquishes the bitterness of the world which in turn is conquered by the burning passion we share for literary artworks. If the world does not want us to meet eye to eye then be it that way. The power of our love is such that it prevails through the exchange of letters and sonnets as opposed to pecks and kisses. Yet as I write these letters, I still feel the aura of your slim-glit soul, the reverberation of your red-rose lips and your gentle speech as it echoes the passion of poetry and chasms of boyish charm. Yet if ever we have the chance to reconcile, maybe in another time, when the world is recovered from its idiosyncrasy and the entanglements on our string have disentangled, let us remake our story together. Forever yours,

Oscar

My Own Darling Boy,

We are more than competent to perpetually pestering each other with the dire documentaries of dejection and distance we have experienced during the past two years. Yet as you have rightfully said, may these alphabetical exchanges bet the outlets through which we can celebrate and cherish our pulchritudinous passion for literary artworks through sonnets, ballads and villanelles that hegemonize the physical intimacy we are destined to be forbidden of. During the many times that I have had to write at Magdalen, your image has never failed to materialise in the depths of my mind. How much do I miss the wise consultations we shared as you reviewed my work. You are my literary muse as I am to you. Hence may these letters be the place where our erudite ideas connect and form the beautiful artworks of literature that you describe. If the power of fate destines us to be held in captivation, may the power of literature be the void through which we celebrate ‘The love that dare not speak its name’. Ever yours,

Alfred