Lament to My Beloved
Jessica, my beautiful Love, why are you afraid to talk to me? I love you so much Jessica. Remember when we first saw each other, and exchanged excited smiles and waves? Remember the first time we talked, for hours, and it was so comfortable? Remember the lack of nervousness and anxiety around each other? The natural intertwining of our lives? My dearest friend, how much I adore you! I would spend my life with you forever! It was only from July until November the year we meet that it took for me to be certain that I wanted you as my wife. And how you loved me! Before I even went to sea again, I had already won the prize that your heart is. Oh, to be loved by you! Never mind the "I love you", but we have the, "you love me!" How wonderful it has been to be with you.
What is the true desire of your heart, my Love? Tell me, oh please tell me your innermost thoughts. Fear not your father's will. Let him not impose it on you as though it was yours. Live not to fulfill him, but yourself. Honor him, to be sure, that is your duty, but don't live to satisfy the will he sees for you. Don't bend your ear too quickly to my speech, either my Love. I would not hear my own voice coming from the loveliest throat on the earth, but that of your own heart. You are the pivotal element here. Have you still not realized that? Don't you know that as you share your true desires with your father, that he will in fact support you? How quick he is to force you to follow the path that he has set for you when he hears his own will echoed back at him from his daughter. How much you respect him! (I promise, no sarcasm at all, even though it may sound that way.) And how your fear of conflict may suffer you to be crushed! I would that this not be. But it is not I, my Love, who any longer has a choice in the matter; you are the focus, the object of two prizefighters. How can I do anything but love thee? You are the most desirable of all fair maidens. Still. Yes, of course still! My affection for you is stronger than e'er it was!
Are you afraid, my Love, of what I will think of you now? That when you open to me that I will draw back in revulsion? That I would see the true you and be anything but more compassionate than ever? I have opened parts of my soul to you I never thought I would to anyone. I trust you with my heart, and you keep it safe. I say the hardest things to say to you, and you love me. What a dear treasure you are! Would that you would do so in return! There is nothing you reveal to me of yourself that I will spite. Test me. Test my love for you that I may prove it to thee.