Mitt Romney is surrounded by supporters in Boston during March’s Super Tuesday primary. (Photo: BU Interactive News)

Dear Mitt Romney,

I hope you don’t mind my calling you Mitty? “Mitt” sounds so stiff, so formal, and you did have your way with us all those years.

It’s not easy to woo and screw an entire state, but you made it look like child’s play. Swooping down on us. Climbing in our window. A lover who came in the dark and left before dawn. We can still feel the lingering kisses, Mitty, and recall the eager, sophomoric foreplay of your 1994 senatorial campaign, not to mention the slam-bam-thank you ma’am you gave us before you left.

Yes you wooed us as a moderate Republican, Mitty, said your kisses and liberal leanings were all true and deeply felt. But then your ardor failed, your interest waned. Was it something we said? Many of us still recall that fourth year of your term as governor, when you couldn’t find the interest to spend even half your days in the state. It was tough living with someone who was never around, Mitty. Clearly your love — if love it was — had fled somewhere else.

Though your marriage to us was consummated in Massachusetts, your heart was now committed to Washington, D.C.

And what about when you derided Massachusetts liberals down in Washington, Mitty? These days, you castigate Obama for apologizing for America. You were still our governor and you were dissing us to a panel of senators as if Massachusetts and its citizens were some objectionable, lab-bred culture.

Hey, Mitty, it’s not easy shifting your shape from a moderate to a conservative! The things you have to do, right?

And so you left us, with your job as our top officeholder unfinished. How many people can govern a state for three years and finish their mission, Mitty? There was so much you still could have done. You had strong relationships with the legislature, knew how to get things done. Had even authored a universal health care bill that actually improved people’s lives. But you heard another voice calling. Once again, desire was rising. Here within reach was another object of affection to woo and screw. A new siren’s call to chase after.

I guess we should feel proud you left us for a bigger state. And not just any state, Mitty, or one state, but the entire United States of America! And if you don’t win them through election, who’s to say you can’t buy them all later?

Let me end this before I start to sound bitter — don’t want you thinking your abrupt rejection has left us sad or bitter. Other states might feel exploited or cheapened by your quick, loveless encounter, but we always secretly knew you would love us and leave us.

No hard feelings, Mitty, we were only looking for a cheap thrill ourselves.

BTW: your Guatemalan landscapers asked to be remembered.

Affectionately,

Paul Steven Stone, for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and all your former and forsaken constituents

Paul Steven Stone is a novelist and essayist living in Cambridge. He can be reached at [email protected]. Share your own essays by e-mailing [email protected].