Dear Fiona,

Weeks seem like years when winter cuts through the flesh of autumn. The scarlet and crimson and orange are suddenly sickly grey, bitter white. Bare asphalt, cold to the touch, trees in mourning... It seems the requiem of summer is sung to the fullest. Winter has cast its cloak over the world, and me. Fiona, I wonder where you are, wonder if you've escaped this. My Fiona.

I find you in the smells of crisp rain, citronella candles, and lavender. I find you in that olive green sweater you borrowed the night we laid by the lake. I find you in the morning, when dawn splits the sky at the seams. Oh, but I never find you in the spaces between my fingers, I never find you in my outstretched palms.

You must be so far by now. Maybe where you are, it's not so cold. Maybe the sun hangs proudly in the sky, bronze and warm. Maybe the leaves on the boughs are still waxy green, rippling at the wind's touch. I never stop wondering.

Hold your breath and stand firm, even as I beg for your return. (You deserve more than me.)
But, oh, the loneliness breaks me. I am cracked hollow. I am in love with a silhouette of a woman. I am half of a home.

Seasons, days, and time. It all blends now, truth and memories and fiction. Those sketches you used to do seem more real than the polaroids tacked on my wall. You're the marrow of my bones and I feel you when the leaves fall, I feel you when the snow falls, I feel you in the winter's sigh. You're deep in the woodwork, buried under my floorboards. You haunt me.

It's been so many days, Fiona.

Forever,
Matthew