I hate the word “love”.

It is so woefully inadequate for those things for which I require its use the most. It is too short. It lacks the texture and force of a word that points at God, gives meaning to madness, and destroys mind and state with equal swiftness. Although these things go ill-described by love, there is no matter for whom its failure is more complete than my Virginia.

A word from the Japanese – “shibumi” – does some service to my cause as it describes an understated, simple, and subtle perfection. Although the word traditionally implies tartness, sourness, the opposite of sweetness, these things also describe Virginia - because it is her coldness as much as her warmth which stokes me. She’s never cruel and is exact, unsentimental, and pure in her intent. What she wants of me, she asks for plainly but with a serpentine, visceral demand which my nature abides a priori.

To watch Virginia work her craft – be it her stitching, riddles, or the Universe – her hand and eye are so careful it becomes the essence of doing. It is from this care of her world that I derive my most sincere, unmixed affections and I do not know whether she is the thing I adore the most or the only thing at all.

Her appearance is the essence of my want. Her family is of western European stock, her curvaceous shape, and milk white skin accounting for this. And though her mouth may be perfect, and the line of her neck a trap to me, it is those eyes! Not like pools or jewels, but like ice-suns that brace a man’s animal and skin it alive, leaving what’s left of me twitching – destroyed but alive.

It is no exaggeration to say that Virginia is the reason for my life. Though I hate truth, meaning, and purpose, I accept my hypocrisy in her case as it is no exaggeration. For as sure as I laid on that floor eleven years ago, with death in my veins and in the blueness of my lips, it was her sorrow that I could not abide and it is her affirmation for which I have done all things of value since - resurrection in its total sense.

So it is apparent that this word “love” is insufficient - too often spoken by those untrained its true use.

And so I’ll only say Happy Birthday, Virginia. Happy Birthday.