Robert Lowell wrote to his fellow poet, Elizabeth Bishop, that he had wanted to propose to her, but had n't, and that:"... asking you is the might have been for me, the one towering change, the other life that might have been had..."

It is for me too. I know it all too well, the life imagined, but held back by indecision and fear. The one person I've yearned for, since time began it seems like, such is the before and after quality of meeting you. I need the courage to move in from the edges and tell you.