How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You?

Dear K,

I write letters about you, but to you. My letters are little poems and movies. They're like tiny little songs about you and the things I think about between the things that fill the empty stretches of our lives. My letters are miniature portraits painted in words. But they will never be novels. I can't write novels, even though I keep telling everyone I'm trying. I mean I am. But not fully. I don't have a the time or energy to become that machine right now. I mean I want to. I want nothing more than to quit my job and spend eight hours in the cafe downstairs writing a thousand pages of misogynistic bullshit. But I'm not that machine right now.

My life's been a movie since I saw The Royal Tennenbaums in the ninth grade.

Tell you what I'll be Chaz and you can be Margot.

Come on. You know you're a muse.

Get out of your head,
K

keys open doors

Dear K-

I always wanted to be someone’s muse. I wanted to inspire poetry, music, films, paintings, novels. Sometimes I like to imagine my life set in high contrast black and white, with a soundtrack that hovers deep and ominous in tempo with my stride down the sidewalk. Something like what David Lynch would make. Cut shots of traffic lights drifting silently in the night, me sprawled on a couch reading a novel with my feet tucked up under me, a dog barking in a neighbor’s yard, the flickering neon of a lonely liquor store front. O-P-E-N. A half-empty glass of amber liquid sits beside me sweating onto the coffee table, the liquid swirling and wavering as it is slowly diluted by the ice melting inside it.

But I’m not really remarkable enough to inspire. Even if I did serve to model for various works, I would probably be uncomfortable or unsatisfied, although potentially flattered. It would probably be more enjoyable to have the subject be vague, but to know that somewhere in the text my shadow touched it all and brought it to life. But I cannot say because I do not know what it feels like.

I’ve been swimming again. There have been a string of bad days lately, and I found myself wanting to do nothing more than put my head underwater and pour out all my thoughts while I steadily completed lap after lap. The sunlight makes dancing, scintillating patterns along the tiled pool floor and I like to watch them shimmer as I gently glide through their rays. It’s calming to spend an hour moving rhythmically and hearing nothing but the inward and outward passing of your breathing, and the swoosh of bubbles with every motion and exhale.

The days are growing longer and I am growing restless.

Longing for a change,
-K

Let's All Dance In Perfect Rhythm

Dear K,

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

I'm laughing because it is spring and I'm sleeping with my windows open. I'm watching television from high school. I feel young. I feel older than I used to because this is the oldest I've ever been, except for right now.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

I'm laughing because I'm starting to get the joke. Gears are coming together, I feel like I'm getting a skin that's made of wires and the wires are starting to connect and maybe my memory is coming back, blinking on and off like a light bulb in a gas station sign.

buzz. hum. buzz. hum. buzz. hum.

Listen to that. That is the sound of the electricity in my apartment buildind. Beyond that is the sound of motorcycles on the streets. When I got home from work tonight it felt like morning, and birds were singing.

I feel like the next president. I feel like a champion water polo player. I'm rising out of the water kicking until it is at my waist and I'm taking the shot, and the goalie can't move fast enough.

I'm going to be something,

K

variable time speed signatures

Dear K-

I hope you’ve found your car.

This weekend I went to the city. The purpose of the trip was to attend a mandatory meeting for all incoming professional students of my class. Imagine, if you will, the following situation: I eat breakfast at 6 and then drive 3 hours to the city. I check into my hotel, and a half-hour later I take a shuttle to the university and prepare for the seminar. Mistakenly, I thought a meal would be provided, but this proves not to be the case. Everyone else shows up with guests, whether they be significant others or a parent or two. They place all of us, approximately sixty people, in a relatively small room with nondescript pop music playing softly in the background. They hand us a nametag and tell us to socialize.

I hate mingling, especially in large groups. It really doesn’t play up my strong points. So I plaster on a pleasant expression and wander around the room, attempting to engage in conversations. It’s an endless execution of standard small-talk procedures, one conversation after another. Hi, I’m so-and-so, what’s your name? Nice to meet you. Where are you from? Oh, really? –Insert vague comment or observation about the town/region/state the person hails from-. What brings you here? Yeah, me too. Boy, this is awkward, isn’t it?

Yes, yes it is. And my dry demeanor doesn’t ever help. I really prefer to meet people in small groups, and with a specific purpose bringing us together, such as meeting for coffee, or a group assignment, or to watch a game on television. If you drop me into a crowded room and tell me to start mingling, I can only tread water for so long before my limbs get tired and I start to drown.

With the warmer weather my insomnia has returned. It gives me a lot of time to think, and it dulls me for the workday. I drift through patients and drudge through the weekdays without comprehending the passage of time. When my circadian rhythm is off, I don’t seem to register the passing of minutes, hours, days. Only when I finally catch a little glimpse of sleep do I realize the expanse of time that has elapsed.

When I do dream, the dreams have been pleasantly mundane. I dream of sitting in an airport, watching the people around me. They shuffle down the halls dragging their luggage in tow. They sit in cramped, connected chairs placed near the terminal gates, coughing into their fists and turning dry pages in beat up novels and wrinkled magazines. It makes me feel at ease to watch them, and I don’t seem to be at the airport to catch a flight. At least, I don’t feel any sense of urgency or anticipation, needing to check the departure board and find the correct gate. Instead I simply sit and watch the people there, stare out the window and watch as the planes take off and land. It’s very soothing to watch those great powerful mammoths of steel and gasoline hurl themselves into the air or swoop down to the landing strip but to not hear a single sound. The thick insulating glass lets me watch their maneuvers as if they were completely silent creatures, performing remarkable feats without even an audible whimper.

I like those dreams.

-K