Chapter Thirty Nine.

i haven't given up on falling in love;

i fully expect to any day now.

the prospects at present look rather bleak

the only girl who ever told me she loved me, i've never met

she lives in Canada, she's twenty-one.

i don't love her, but i'm almost willing to try.

i'd rather suffer from my present state of unrequited love

than fall in love with a girl whom i've never seen.

there's something comforting about unrequited love,

about longing for a romance that will never happen.

sometimes i toy with the notion

that unrequited love could exist outside of hope,

but no matter how often i tell myself that it wasn't meant to be

i can't shake the lingering hope that miracles happen.

i wouldn't enjoy this unrequited love if i had no hope.

Last Revised 12/10/96