hammerhead

Look on my words, ye mighty, and despair! – Fondly, Blue
My most insidious Blue – My regards to the vast and trunkless legs of stone, Red
Dear Red, in Tooth, in Claw – I look forward to your reply, Blue
Dearest Blue-da-ba-dee – Hugs and Kisses, Red
My perfect Red – Best, Blue
My Dear Mood Indigo – Yours, Red
My Careful Cardinal – Write to me in London next. Blue
Dearest 0000FF – Yours, Red
Dear Red Sky at Morning – Best, Blue
Dear Blue – Yours, Red
My dear Miskowaanzhe – Yours, Blue
Dearest Lapis – Yours, Red
Dear Price Greater Than Rubies – Yours, Blue
My dear Sugar Maple – Yours, Blue
Dear Sailor’s Delight – Yours, Blue
My Blueprint – Yours, Red
Dear Strawberry – Yours, Blue
Dear Raspberry – You, though, Red–
My Apple Tree, my Brightness – Love, Blue
Dear Blue – Love, Red
My Heart’s Own Blood – Love, Blue
Dear Blue – I love you. R
Dear Red – As you wish. B
Stop. – At the end as at the start, and through all the in-betweens, I love you. Red
Oh, Red – Yours, Blue
My dear Hyper Extremely Red Object – This is how we win.

Salutations - and Closings - of each letter

I’m sorry. No. If we’re this far, if you’ve been this selfish – I did not mean that. I would have fought you forever. I would have wrestled you through time. I would have turned you, and been turned. I would do anything. I have done so much, and would have done as much again, and more. And yet here I am, a fool, writing you one last time, and here you are, a fool, reading me. We’re one, at least, in folly.

This Is How You Lose The Time War (from pages 164-165)

I feel you, the needle of you, dancing up and downthread with breathtaking abandon. I feel your hand in places I’ve touched. You move so fast, so furious, and in your wake the braid thickens, admits fewer and fewer strands, while Garden scowls thunderclaps and bids me deepen my work.
I like to think of all the ways I could have stopped you, were I so inclined.
Sometimes I am inclined. Sometimes I sit here stationary, and know you so swift and sure, and think, I must prove myself her equal again – and the sharp, electric ache to stop you just to see you admire me is a kind of needle too.

This Is How You Lose The Time War (from page 102)

The thought of your disembodied network repulses me, but I look at you, Red, and see much of myself: a desire to be apart, sometimes, to understand who I am without the rest. And what I return to, the me-ness what I know as pure, inescapable self...is hunger. Desire. Longing, this longing to possess, to become, to break like a wave on a rock and reform, and break again, and wash away. This is a necessary part of any ecosystem, but it unsettles others, this inability to be satisfied. It is difficult – it is very difficult, to befriend where you wish to consume, to find those who, when they ask Do I have you still, when they end a letter with Yours, mean it in any substantive way.

This Is How You Lose The Time War (from page 72)