I love you, the greatest sentence of them all. My best friend has steadfastly refused to say these words his whole life. What a guy! a human who would be human by not saying the sentence which always eventually flattens but at the moment when said is bread, heroin, air. Is his nonvoicing the equivalent of Shaw and Gandhi's celibacy?

Start with I. OK. Where else would you start? With you? Yes, now you know what love is, I love you starts with you, not I, that’s what our man Blake is saying [above]: “For another gives its ease.” Love is giving love away. Love is you.

Start with love, with the verb. Love you I. Love I you. 3 Lil Voids. Blake’s Love is a noun, a thing. As a word, as the word love, pleases [defines] itself, the I binds meaning, a ring.

You who say “I know what Love is,” I love you. You who say “I do not know what love is,” I love you too. You who say “I know what love is. What it is is...,” no, I do not love you, but when silence extends beyond speech, I do. You who say “I don’t know what it [love] is, and you can’t really, because...,”; I could never love you. But I do.

And to my friend who cannot say I love you, I love you.

Bob Holman