I have a confession to make. I'm not really who you think I am. I'm not strong, or courageous, or even very smart. I'm nothing like the noble Aragorn, so proud and tall. Sometimes I wondered if you ever really saw me, or if you just saw Aragorn embedded on top of me. If you didn't see Viggo, you saw AragornViggo, and so you (being Boromir-minded through the shoot) naturally deferred. I sometimes wonder if that's what caused our relationship to sour.

I saw an angel once. I remember it clearly. After all, it's not everyday that you see an angel. Rembrandt might have seen them everyday, in the street corners where whores lingered, or under the palatial archways of his city, striving for heaven. I've seen angel only once, during a rainstorm in the middle of Route 60, standing by the side of the road, thumb out, wings drenched, hitchhiking its lonely way back to heaven. I met you during a rainstorm my first weekend Down Under and wondered if Heaven was New Zealand and the rainstorm angel had found his home. Or maybe you only saw angels in rainstorms, feathery hair drenched from the downpour, smiling sadly from the pain of no longer being with God.

When you first meet someone, it's like a blank page. The first word defines what will come later, and as much as you try to erase, you can never get rid of those first impressions. Exene's first words to me were "you're a damn idiot, whoever you are". Henry's was "cola", which tells you something about my parenting. When I first saw you, I could almost see the possibilities stretched out before us. Your body was blank to my attentions and I wanted to remedy that, wanted to write on you, and claim you. I wanted to erase every moment we hadn't been together and make it so that our whole lives we had been together. That's what the poets call love, I suppose, but I think of it more as obsession, and it still frightens me at time in its intensity. Obsession and possession, and being your whole world, and you being mine. I wanted to introduce myself as the devil, come to corrupt all beautiful falling angels, but you spoke first.

"So you're Viggo. I've heard a lot about you."

And what do you say to that?

The first night I met you I went home and wrote a poem about you, about your hair, your eyes, the way you made me feel when you looked at me. I gave it to the wind, let it gust and blow, hoping that it would go to a good home. I had hoped that maybe writing my feelings down would lessen them, make me see how convoluted my view of you was. I looked at you and saw the whole nine yards: a future, a house, a garden, and Henry there, smiling at us.

Those first few hard days, just filming little looks on the journey, nothing too strenuous, I wrote the first stanza.

I didn't mean to take advantage of you that night. We stumbled out of the bar at half-past four, laughing over some inane thing. We had filmed Amon Hen that afternoon and I was still reeling from holding you dead in my arms. Everything I couldn't say before suddenly became necessity, and you were suddenly a poem that I never got a chance to write. And I mourned for what we never had but had lost anyway.

I remember grabbing you in the street, and you were laughing so hard you almost threw up. Kiwis were giving us strange looks, but I threw you into an alley and just kissed you. You smelt like beer and pretzels and the piss that was surely pooling in the alleyway. We didn't make it back to either of our houses that night, but that nice cop let us sleep it off in a cell. First time I ever slept next to you, but you were too far gone when I huddled up next to you, hoping that some of your angelic perfection would rub off on me.

After the night we did the shards of Narsil, you took me into your bed, into your arms. Home never tasted sweeter than your lips, and I wondered openly whether Boromir ever gave Aragorn that gift. You laughed at that, but I saw you bite your lip, knowing you were thinking that I was being Aragorn, being absorbed in method acting, and was taking my due from my steward.

But it wasn't like that. Not at all.

"This after seeing you last night, first time smelling you with permission," I whispered to you during our break the next day, right before giving you my new version of 'hello'. You returned the kiss, didn't say anything as to the poetry, but I had my second stanza.

We all knew Boromir would have to die and, since he was a human, wouldn't come back. I knew you'd be back for reshoots and I'd see you in interviews and premieres once the movie came out, but I didn't want that kind of relationship. I didn't want to be your sometimes-lover, the one who you kept coming back to because he was so familiar and safe. I didn't want to be the secret you kept from your family, your dirty little escapade covered up at family gatherings. I didn't want to be known among your exes as the real reason why you couldn't keep a proper hetero relationship. I didn't want to be your shame.

The first time you left, I thought my heart broke. Good thing Peter had scheduled some 'Aragorn is sad' scenes, so I didn't have to force it. He told me to mourn Arwen. Instead, I was mourning you.

When you were in England, you wouldn't return my calls. Ian told me to move on. Fran gave me dating tips. I wrote the third stanza when you came back the fourth time with lipstick on your collar and wouldn't look me in the eye when we talked. I hugged you and spent the night, but you left before dawn without a note or a goodbye.

The sixth time you left, you didn't come back.

We did interviews together and fought over who could be more quiet, who could throw the most inventive phrased praise, calculated to fluster the other. We were quarreling lovers who were no longer lovers, and I found myself hating the time we spent apart.

Last week I called you for the first time in a year, but hung up when I heard you pick up. Prayed you didn't have caller-ID, prayed that you wouldn't tell the operator to phone me back. God's never liked me. I think it's because I corrupted one of his angels.

"Hey, Vig. Talk to me."

And what could I say to that?

I want to write a fourth stanza, Sean. I want to come full circle. I want an ending to this farce I've called my life for the past year, since the last premiere and I knew there wasn't much chance I'd see you before ROTK. Help me write the stanza, Sean. Help me be complete.

My heart is forever yours, Vig."

The reply came by e-mail four days later, and was short and to the point.

"Hey, Vig. Got an idea for your last stanza. Open the door. Love you too, and have missed you more than a plebian like me can say, Sean."

4.

TRIED TO SAY SOMETHING THAT FILLED MY MOUTHAND LONGED TO RESTIN YOUR EAR. DON'T DARE WRITE IT DOWN FOR FEAR IT'LL BECOME WORDS, JUST WORDS. -From Communion, by Viggo Mortensen.