love letters by emmy clarke
love is stored in the words
To those who kept this page marked for me,
There is a softer love than this-I remember it, now; it is stored in the word, and also the sturdy stand at the journey's end --or perhaps, its beginning-and the sprint past fellow passengers. It is stored too, in the surreal embrace between friends who thought they would never see each other again.
It is in the drawing away, the face-drinking, the gasped laughter, the first words: "You guys are dressing!"
It is stored in the way our bodies still gravitate; in the way my heart would know yours whether it had been three years or thirty.
It is stored in the closing of tired eyes, the summoning of your souls to give this "prodigal someone" the strength to say the words only I can.
Love is stored in the words these ones, and those.
Love, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: THE X5 BUS
Dear members of the Lets Get Boxes Tranported community,
This is what your twenties are for: three dear friends pulling up in a fine chariot to carry my life in boxes five minutes down the road.
(You are surprised that the boxes are light.)
Grinning, you hand me a crowbar to destroy an old bed frame--It takes the four of us to wrestle it apart. Well, I film the chaos, as you three do the hard work.
(I am surprised that I have not come close to crying--)
Later we sit within the castle’s remaining walls, a oncetower weathered by historic battles, by time itself. We do not talk of what has passed, but of the delights to come.
(--and now I am laughing and this, too, is a surprise.)
There is a peace, a clarity, to be found in being witnessed in fragments. Before you get up off your knees, place brick to brick, and build again.
Love, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: OSWESTRY CASTLE
lovers
Dear ones,
Love is you, waiting for me at the bus stop because I have no idea where I am going.
Love is you, taking off your headphones because you are excited to bump into me.
Love is you, praising my dress with pockets because it is indeed a form of witchcraft.
Love is you, loading me up with books to borrow because there is a lot to catch up on after so long.
Love is you, buying me a plump, jammy doughnut because you want to, and (now) you can.
Love is you, offering to drive fifty miles to help because whatever happened back then, it is forgiven.
Love is you, passing on advice you once received because really: we do all deserve to feel cherished.
Love is you, waking up and slipping on your walking shoes-because it would be easier to turn over and go back to sleep.
Love, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: BOOKA BOOKSHOP
Dear R----,
You don’t drink much tea. Still, you brew it for me. Slow, pouring kettle, oat milk. Small, leaf-shaped dish for the bag.
There is a symbol moulded into the mug that I recognise, from before I gave myself away. You couldn’t have known it, but--
It calls me back to myself, awakens-The symbol, three-fold. The tea, grounding.
You,
Brief, long enough, you sit across from me. Steady, gentle enough, ginger cat on your shoulder.
Later (but not TOO much later) we will sit in this same room. Sun-soaked, basking in elderflower cordial, baked beans and laughter.
For now, though, I leave you-my roots unearthed, well-watered, alive.
Love, Emmy
Dear F---- and R--,
Do you remember the time we fell down that massive hill? Heads over ankles, three giddy boulders, tumbling through the mist? Through the mud? Through the bracken and the reeds? Rolling into the river?
Churning, it carried us coughing, crying with laughter, ’til it splarted us into the salty sea. A barnacled whale sucked us in and (to make matters worse) swallowed us whole.
Then it splooted us--SHLOOP!--out of its blowhole, high in the sky. Brine in my eyes, I lost you, I lost you. I arched, landed right back on top of that hill; shrouded in thick fog.
I, despairing, lost you.
And, well, it happened again, didn’t it? I took a single step and slipped, slid, sludge-drenched. Plunged into the river, dragged deep and drawn to sea, slurped back into that titanic tum.
A much scarier journey, alone.
(Less laughter!)
But when I was ejected, spat into the night sky once more, I felt your fingers lace through mine. You had never touched the ground, just went on soaring, two stars, two giggling, guiding lights. All this time waiting for me to join your constellation.
With you, with you, the way is clear-I can finally see for miles. Dear Oswestry, and beyond.
Love then, love now, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: OSWESTRY CLIMATE ACTION HUB
conversations with my cat
Sweet Parsley,
Thank you for screaming your terrible breath into my face, and for sneezing into my eyeball, and also for waking me up in time for work by hurling yourself at my weary body as fast and as hard as you can.
Thank you, too, for your thunderous applause following my successful delivery of your breakfast--it shudders through your tiny, soft chest and into mine. Five stars on Uber Eats, excellent service.
Why is your tail wet? Why are you so naughty? Were you lonely, while I slept? Poor baby.
Do you know why it is that I close my eyes and open them slowly to you? It is because
I love you. I love you.
Love, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: BED, BECAUSE YOU ARE SLEEPING ON MY CHEST
Dear S------,
Mate, let’s “embrace this tender moment”--
EUGH!
Actually, no, stop. Let’s start this poem over. That was almost as bad as the day we first wrote those awful words on the school playing field.
Yeah, “embracing tenderly” (EUGH!) marked the cringe-filled end of our careers as co-authors, but not of everything else. Not our sisterhood.
You are my binocular-clad life-witness. Often, I call to ear your teenaged laughter; despite distance, urging me to follow my heart’s compass.
ARGH!
Sorry. Could you give me a lobotomy? I fear I am only going to get worse. But never THE worst. THE worst was Year Ten; thank god we will never be fourteen again.
Love you bud, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: OSWESTRY MARKET
Dearest,
accompaniment
Would you accompany me?
On this journey, that is--
However far, in fact--
Can we take the long way round?
Meander a while longer?
Would you accompany me?
Sit for hours, with me?
Breathe in tandem, with me?
So long, we forget the longing? The desire for hands to brush?
(...It is still there!)
Would you accompany me?
Shape words, with me?
Paint worlds, with me?
Name the stars freckling our eyes, burst our chests into cosmic colour, pink, purple, blue--with me?
Would you accompany me?
It’s okay if not, but I’d sooner, much sooner,
Love you, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: THE HEART
Dear Mama,
I would eat ice cream with you in Cae Glas Park every single day for the rest of my life.
We have spoken often lately about “the big love”, the love that lasts and endures, that does not break.
And maybe I will find that in someone, someday, and maybe I will marry her, or him, or them, and maybe this will all makes sense then, I don’t know. Maybe to dream of it is delusional, these days.
But.
I would eat ice cream with you in Cae Glas Park every single day for the rest of my life.
And if that’s a small love, I don’t want big.
Love you to pieces and mieces, Emmy
WRITTEN WITH LOVE FROM: CAE GLAS PARK
love letters is a collection of love poems written by Emmy Clarke as part of her 2024 ART-efact Oswestry Artist Residency. Informed by her own life experience and conversations with the local LGBT+ community, these indulgent, floral and sometimes silly poems explore the many different kinds of love that life offers up to us. These poems are written in response to working with the Gilbert and Gordon letters - from one man to another during WWII. The letters are touching, eye-opening pieces of LGBT+ history discovered by Mark Hignett of Oswestry Town Museum. emmy-writes.com