By William Goldman

“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches…
I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you.
I have taught myself languages because of you.
I have made my body strong because
I thought you might be pleased by a strong body.
I have lived my life with only the prayer
that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction.
I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage.
I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep.
There has not been a morning
when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids…

I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I love you.
Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you.
Want it backward? You love I…

I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen.
Every time you said, ‘Farm Boy, do this,’

you thought I was answering, ‘As you wish‘,
but that’s only because you were hearing wrong.
‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard.”