vitiligo

Dear K-

You have forgotten me. You have let the memory of me slip to the far peripheral precipice of your temporal cortex, to be lost among the other overlooked moments and stranded images. It’s not dark here. In fact, it’s not really what I expected at all. There’s a warmness to it, and a dim but reassuring illumination, as if even in the discarded remnants of your conscious you couldn’t bear to encourage a feeling of complete abandonment.

But my sighs linger here, floating in the empty cavern like tiny ghosts looking for someone to talk to, something familiar. I stretch the hours between my fingers as if it were a game of cat’s cradle, waiting for a spark of inspiration.

I take consolation in the knowledge that you’ve been busy. I want you to be happy, even if that means I’m not involved. If it takes forgetting these silly letters to make you happy, then so be it.

All the best,
-K

kitten heart

Dear K-

You feel the restlessness that has shivered in my bones for most of my life. The temptation of the trivial, the tiny tasks and diversions that bring a smile to our lips- they whisper to us, a gentle pleading to come out and play. But you’re stuck behind a monitor that speaks in cyan, magenta, and yellow thoughts and I’m sitting at my kitchen table staring at the leaves of flesh from the corpse of an oak over which I’ve tattooed with graphite scrawlings. The deviation is equal to the distance decentered multiplied by the power of the lens...The saddest tattoo on the palest of flesh.

We can entertain whims when the time permits. These days, it seems you are abandoning the shore and wading into the deeper waters of uncertainty, attracted by the glitter of a distant horizon that promises happiness. You’ve acknowledged the land holds nothing for you: it’s time to swim. You’re treading between the novelty you wish to encapsulate on stage and the cobwebs you think you require for your prose. I hope you can find your way out of limbo. You are used to the work and the struggle, but I hope for you it pays off and you reach that distant shore.

I apologize for fading away again. The last few months have been hard to endure. A week ago I again found myself in a hospital, strapped up to machines by electrodes. They punctured me with needles, they stole my blood. They hooked me up to a sagging sack that dribbled its poison into my arm as I slowly watched my vein collapse and let the blood pool in darkening chambers beneath my flesh, later to become horribly unattractive bruises stretching from my inner elbow to upper forearm. All for nothing except for some sympathetic shrugging of shoulders, heads tilted in silent confusion, and a request for more tests at a later date. They can’t figure out what’s wrong with this heart and I’m beginning to think I will never know, either. In some ways, that’s probably for the best.

I’m living hour to hour these days. The only thing keeping me afloat is the idea that winter will bring a break for the holidays, and an ever supportive presence of a boyfriend who refuses to believe I am anything but perfect for him. Note…for him. There is acknowledgement of flaws, but every nuance of my being seems to strike the proper chord with him. And he with me. When I was in the hospital he brought me soup…I don’t think he understood that soup is for colds but he’s Serbian and the soup was delicious so I will never correct him on it.

Go on and find your dreams. Some of us still struggle to even fall asleep.
-K

Dear K,

I am all the things you imagine me to be. I am out there somewhere in the dark smoking a cigarette making new friends with my discussion of the inconsequential things that don't matter. I am happy, and I am sad. I am gripped by things.

I am out here on the prairie under the sky, the ground is lit a sickly orange by sodium lights. Falling stars leave their tails in my vision. My glasses are dirty and my thoughts are clean. I want to walk away. I want to hop a train. I want to run alongside the great iron horse and jump into a boxcar filled with the insane and eccentric.

I spend my nights in bars, listening to jokes about the state of things. About the worlds of people I know only because we've spent so many nights talking to each other from the stage. I hear ugly things. I hear hate. I hear sexism, racism, and all the other negative isms. I listen to jokes about cum and jizz and tits and ass and pussy and bitches and cunts and assholes and the gays and lesbians and black people. Do you want to know something curious? At the end of these ugly things, people laugh. They fill themselves with air and shake. They let loose. They get drunk and yell at the stage for more. You see it in their eyes. They're at a buffet of ugly things. A Golden Corral, but instead of half cooked things under the warming lights, there is only the dark side of humanity.

But still they laugh.

They laugh at themselves too.

And then I take the microphone from the stand, and I spill my silly words from my mouth. Like a person at the dentist, mouth shot full of novacaine.

I'm going to get fired from my job at the end of the month. There are a lot of reasons why. The main one is that I don't care enough to keep it. I'm not a person who should be lit with florescent lights. My back hurts from sitting at a desk. My wrists ache from typing. I need to stand. I need the endless night of a dark theater. I need the blinding numberless suns of the stagelights. I need the roar of the audience, cut with their silence and disapproval. I need humans. I need pain. I need joy. I cannot bear this monotony much longer.

But I have too. I have to grind away my years until I have paid my dues. I have to throw away those countless hours before the stage. Or in my writing, I have to throw away my youth for the old age I want.

I wasn't born handsome or rich. I wasn't born with enough talent to get paid for the things that make me happy, and I think I'm better for it.

I am nice. I take my victories like my meals. I work for them. They are not given to me, and they are all the sweeter for the hunger spent on them.

I hope I leave a body of work behind me when I die. So my friends have something pretty to read. My family will say nice things about me at my funeral, but they won't know me. I come from people who live in daylight and think of things in nice orderly rows, boxes to be checked, and categories to be filled. They put me in a box long ago and have, either through habit or comfort, neglected to change that box as I have changed.

To them I'm still the strange child who read greek myths at the dinner table. I'm still the weird kid who couldn't say anything profound, and now they won't listen to me. That's the danger with getting to know people. You don't allow them to change and grow.


But I have waxed.

I miss you.

Regards,

K

what's on the ceiling beats what's on tv

Dear K-

Days drift in and out and still not a single breath from you. I imagine you are busy and happy, because I like to think of you that way. I see you in an eternal loop in which you chuckle, eyes sparkling behind thick black eyeglass frames, mustache twitching over a lip curled into a grin. In your hand is a glass of whiskey, a rich amber color and sloshing thick like syrup, leaving sticky wet veins running down the edges of your glass. You’ve finished your novel. You’ve finished a marathon. You’ve finished your latest project at work and have been promoted on to the next level of task completion. In my mind you are feeling content to sit outside at night and smoke a cigarette, your voice lingering beneath the stars as you discuss music, as you discuss philosophy, as you discuss absolutely nothing at all. You’re just happy to be there and happy to be alive.

Since I am not provided with an alternative, this is how I chose to see you now in your lull of correspondence. It would explain your silence- if you are feeling up and productive than you have no use of me, your outlet for loneliness. It is a more pleasant thought than to think you’ve forgotten about me completely, or worse- that you’ve sunk into such depths of despair that not even my fragile words can reach you.

Hope all is well,
-K

sets of keys

dear k-

it’s been weeks. I begin to wonder where you are, what you’re doing, if your heart’s still beating…have we just been lumbering freight trains, passing unnoticed in the night as we carry our respective loads?

I started school again. the summer tapered to a beautiful end as I slid back into my routine of early mornings and book-laden afternoons. so far I have been keeping pace and still managing to find time for the things I enjoy. the rains came and brought back the green that had lacked through the dusty months of june and july, but it also brought a heaviness to the air. its that miserable humidity that I abhor but you seem to hold a strange predilection for. every time I feel its oppressive embrace I think of how much you’d be enjoying that stifling environmental hug.

which brings me back to you.
you you you.

where have you been?

adrift,
-k

čekam

Dear K-

I disappeared for a while. We both seem to do that, from time to time. Occasionally I have to drift into the shadows and lie there, very still, until I begin to sense the slow rotation of the earth beneath me and I can come to terms with the passing of each day. Once I find the rhythm then I can come to my feet again. I apologize for my lack of correspondence. I apologize for not picking up the phone.

Everything has been well here, but the ending of summer has me anxious again. I fear what the autumn may bring (or, more appropriately, what it may send away). I will miss my spare hours. I worry that his love for me will fade when the textbooks drain the color from my cheeks. The leaves here are already dead and crinkled on the ground. What does that leave for October?

I spent the evening alone in my apartment. Sat at the dining room table and had an argument with myself in regards to my eating and drinking habits. I never win in these arguments. I hope your writing is going well. Have you found a publisher or some sort of outlet? You always chided me for storing all my work in the desk drawer, out of public eye. Don’t tell me you’ve gone and become a hypocrite now.
Soon I will be distracted again by disease and disorder. I hope you will understand and be patient with me.

Faded,
-K

Ah Me

Dear K,

I have been absent. I have done nothing. Well that's not true. I have written so much more in my novel. I have said hello and farewell to long distant friends. I have filled my days with clouds and smoke and drink and songs and poems and endless solitude.

I am comfortable in my solitude. I wear it well. My solitude is a comfortable suit. Neither too thin or thick. It breaths in summer and holds close in winter. Perhaps I wear it so well because I am loved by so many, and by many not in the way that I would chose. But as you well know nobody can chose who and how they love.

I think a large answer to my problems is that I need to publish some of my work. Some of my short stories, not the ones in that terrible little green book, are ripe for publishing. I merely need to blow some dust off of them and send them in, and then in my fantasies I bask in adulation. A career is launched, where I spend my days riding a bicycle up and down the banks of the Mississippi River, gathering stories.

Today I heard a story about a friends mother. She was wild in her youth, and would steal away in the middle of the night to smoke cigarettes. She and her girlfriends would go to the roofs of tall buildings and spit off them. Once on ludicrous youthful excursion this woman, then a girl, snuck onto a neighbors farm and grabbed a watermelon. The farmer shot a round of buckshot at her, shattering the melon, and forever embedding a small piece of metal in her face. The buckshot remains there to this day, I'm told at the top of her cheek, just below her right eye, and you can poke at it, and she will laugh and tell you other stories about dark summer nights.


I hope all is well.

We should perhaps talk on the phone soon.

Regards,
K

nisam mislio na to

Dear K-

You know I have been in those trenches. You know I have held the burden of loneliness and spent days, weeks, years trying to avoid the very real possibility that people like you and I might just be destined to be alone. We aren’t like those “people”. We’re our own sort. We can’t go to bars and pick up dates because our hard drives have not been formatted to function in such a process. I tried one time and came pretty close: I was lonely and lacking self-respect so I went out to the bars and found a reasonable guy who seemed friendly enough and willing to engage in conversation and dancing. Towards the end of the evening, I could tell he was the other type of “people”. He leaned in close and whispered terrible things in my ear as I swayed back and forth between his hands in a drunken rhythm to the pop music blaring throughout the bar.

I thought to myself that I could be “people”, that this is what society told us was how people met and interacted in the dim hours of the evening. At that moment I wanted to be “people”, and I submitted to his advances and let him kiss me on the lips. All in all, it probably lasted about a minute. When his lips touched mine all I could taste was emptiness. It felt bitter and cold and it terrified me. I pulled away and excused myself, stumbling away awkwardly across the dance floor. I left immediately and drove home. The rest of the night was spent in agony; I felt cheap and ashamed of how I had acted, but also still struggling with the horrible acknowledgement that I may remain alone.

Since I have been there, perhaps am still there some days, I’d like to think I can relate to what you are going through. That being said, I know the last thing you want to hear at this point is all the standard drivel and stock phrases that “people” offer out whenever they discover someone in this emotional state. It will get better- you’ll find someone. There’s definitely a girl out there for you. You are well loved by all your friends and family. We are here for you.

But I know that those phrases fall like a drop of water on hot white sand. They are meaningless. There’s nothing I can tell you to ease the gnawing emptiness. All I can offer is that I have encountered those demons quite frequently.

When I sort medical charts at clinic, I sometimes get depressed when I find a lone file of a surname. No other files to accompany it. I wonder if this person is alone…I wonder if some day there will only be one file of my surname resting on the shelf.

Of course, that’s not to say I’m longing to rush headfirst into anything just for the sake of avoiding being alone. If I had wanted to get married to stave off loneliness I could have been married 3 times by now based on the offers I’ve received. But it wasn’t love. If I had accepted those bids, I would have been living a life far more lonely than I would if I had chosen to remain alone. I think we both know we’re not talking about being with someone simply to be with someone. We’re talking about love. True, honest and unabashed love for another human being…something incredibly rare and often misunderstood these days.

Keep writing. It will bring a sense of productivity and some relief, if nothing else.

Keep breathing,
-K

Plenty of Sunshine Though.

Dear K,

I've been out of the world for a little while. I guess. I don't know. I haven't posted anything in response, mostly because I haven't had anything new to say. I'm really pleased that you're happy.

I'm in a sort of purgatory. I feel the edges of towns calling to me. I'm getting restless and I want to go for long midnight drives across the prairie. I want to roll into towns and make miracles happen in my wake.

I've been fixing other people's problems. Maybe I've been doing that so long because I don't want to fix any of my own. But my biggest problem is something that I can't fix.

I'm lonely. I talk to friends, and that works for a while. I talk to old flames, and there's nothing there. I'm haunted by the empty space in my bed.

People make it sound so easy. They talk about going out to bars and fucking somebody. They talk about pick ups and booty calls and numbers written on cocktail napkins.

They also talk about romantic comedies. Somebody just falls out of the sky and loves them.

I think I might have to be alone forever, for my writing.

My writing is getting better. I practice everyday at work. I practice pacing out the paragraphs. I practice people talking to each other, careful not to reveal what they really mean. But mostly I practice putting a pen to paper and letting the words flow out like blood or guts or snot or tears or laughter, the things that cut you open and show something underneath these hard crusty shells we build up.

It's been a while since we've had rain in this part of the world. It's been hot, and so humid. It's been so humid your clothes stick to you the minute you walk out your front door. They suck up right next to your skin, and no matter how loose your collar is, it seems to be choking in the swampy heat.

 You know what they used to call the midwest? All the prairies? They used to call them "The Great American Desert". That's what it was labeled on the maps.

I think I might be a desert.
It's been a while since I've had some rain,

K

la vieille ferme

Dear K-

Dreams can rattle our bones like a gust shakes and clatters barren branches in the heart of winter. They are not always taken lightly and it’s those like your courthouse melodrama that leave us questioning in the daytime. Did it have meaning? Would I kill someone if it meant benefit/safety for several other souls? Who would stay by my side if I were to be labeled a murderer? What did I eat for dinner that let such a sour act to unfold in my subconscious?

You were right to leave that girl. If she wasn’t willing to pay you heed then she wasn’t worth the time. She wasn’t even worth the lousy cigarette. You deserve better, and I hope you can find it. I want you to find the sweet soul who will drip viscous tears like sticky grappa when she finds you in pain, in torment. The girl with a plain country mouth that will truly smile only for you- every other grin is just for show, just for the audience…but when she looks at you it will be genuine, just like everything else about her when she’s by your side.

My emotions have not changed since our last correspondence. My heart is held captive…but I have no desire to break free. It’s a unique phenomenon…when you fall in love, all the other suitors seem to crawl out from the shadows and begin making their presence known again. It is as if they can smell your happiness, see the glow in your cheeks and hear the tempo of your heart. They try to tell you they love you, or they try to slip you their phone number from behind the coffee counter, or they serenade you while on the job. It is as if they are inexplicably attracted now that you are unobtainable.

And I am unobtainable. For the first time in my life I have no problem turning those gentlemen callers away…I don’t even look at them and think of potentials. I have no interest in such games or scenarios. Instead, I laugh to myself and think “my, won’t this make a funny story to tell Aleks later…”

My thoughts are always of him. It’s getting to be embarrassing. But I don’t want it to stop.
-K

This isn't the letter I promised

Dear K,

I dreamt I was being convicted of murder, and sentenced to death, and I had six months to go on a roadtrip with my family and my girlfriend, and I pushed them all away so I could finish my novel, and we went to old barns and I cried every day of those six months. Big wet tears of humility and stupidity, it's what the cows cry on the slaughterhouse ramps. I cried tears of salt and bile. And there she was the girl I loved to kiss them away and cry with me because our time was so short.

And of course I didn't do it, and I kept trying to figure out who would think I possibly killed someone, and I wanted to solve the mystery of the murder and where the real killer was, but I knew I wouldn't do it in time, I only had six months in that dream and I'd rather spend them living and dying in the arms of my loved ones. So I did, and the dream ended with me walking up the courthouse steps.


Last night I ran into a girl I took on a date last week. She said let's smoke a cigarette and get pizza and talk, and then I left her there on the street because she was talking to everyone else but me.

I guess what I'm saying is sometimes I want to be convicted of murder. I want to find out who my lover is.

This isn't the letter I promised, but it counts as a post.

K

Dear K,


Your last letter pleases me down to my marrow. 


I will write more soon. I will ask you questions and give you encouragement. 


I am too tired tonight. But it is so good to hear you are happy. It has made me happy. 

Enjoy every minute you get of this,
Don't let your friends and co-workers and acquaintances take this away from you,
This thing you have found is too rare,

K

P.S. This doesn't count as a post, if we're still keeping score.

honey and bile

Dear K-

I am in love. Just when my world felt like it was going to shatter at my feet, he was there. He came in with a quiet voice and unchecked grin. When he told me he loved me, his lips were trembling. All alone, in a private room in the back of a restaurant, assorted wine bottles crowding the table before us…a lesson in wine-tasting turned into thoughtful discussion.

This is how it all began- innocent, unthreatening conversations about anything and everything. We would sip wine and talk until the sun begged to break the day. I told him things I had never told anyone. I do not know why- it just felt right to be honest. It felt like he would understand.

And he did understand…probably all too well. I didn’t mean to pull him away; I didn’t mean to cause a stir. But our hearts were buzzing along in harmony and it could not be ignored. He was reserved, almost monk-like in his devotion. He swore he’d never touch me unless I gave him permission, no matter how much he longed to hold my hand or kiss my cheek. But the attraction was not physical…it was intensely emotional, feeling like he was forged from the same earth from which I arose. It was unspeakable, indescribable…and we both were surprised.

So now my heart is afloat- the happiest one. Our newfound connection has not been without hurdles…and I know that it is hard for others to understand or accept it. I have been called a homewrecker. I have been called a whore. I have been told my heart is fickle and cruel.

But I can’t help what I feel…maybe I am selfish. But I am absolutely, completely, embarrassingly in love with him. What am I to do? I have never felt this way before.

Words fail me,
-K

Love. Love. Love.

Dear K, Love. Please love for me. Love in my absence. Love this person. Love them with all of you. Lose yourself. Loose your senses. Loose yourself. I wish you joy and sorrow. I wish you heights and depths. Without the depths you would not know the heights. Love. I wish you happiness. I wish you frustration. I wish you joy. I wish you love. I have had mine. I have had enough love for a lifetime, and I know I will have more. Right now I wish you love. I wish you love as I wish you clouds and sunshine. I wish you love as I wish you oxygen and bread. For all that is in me, for all that is me, for all that I might be, I wish you more. Love, K

calm, as if absent

dear K- i want to make it easier for you. i want to lift the weights and let my spine crack like a wine glass if that's the force required to do so, the strength necessary to be certain you are well. i cannot bear to see you be in pain. you deserve happiness. of course, sometimes i wonder whether we "deserve" anything. what sort of unspoken promises were made to us when we were young to make us feel entitled to happiness and self-assurance? if we live relatively tolerant lives, are we truly guaranteed the contentment of a satisfying existence? perhaps some of us were born to suffer...born to be the artists and the creatives. micheaux has a fantastic line about how we weren't all born to open windows...some of us were born to suffocate. it is just how these things progress, i suppose. so of course our lives aren't simple and bland...we'd have no reason to write, no reason to live if there wasn't some unpredictability and excitement (even when negative). people are falling in love with me and i don't know what to do. today i spent the entire day indoors, thinking to myself. sipped tea at the kitchen table staring at the wood grain. laid in bed and studied the water-stain continents of the ceiling. tomorrow will be different. -k

I'm back again. Whatever it was lasted only a day or two. I had started to doubt myself and my worth and what the hell I was doing with my life. Then I started writing, and I've only written like four or five pages in the last couple of days, but already I feel better. Just wanted to let you know, K

Dear K, And just like that I hit a wall. Something happened. I don't know I guess the wind shifted. A veil came down. I need someone to lay in my bed and whisper to me. Whisper to me until I'm asleep. I want a pair of arms to hold onto me. As strong as I am I need a little help lifting this weight. Lately I've stopped believing she exists. I've been looking in the mirror and telling myself I'm just going to have to talk to myself for a while longer. I've been alone in crowded rooms before. I couldn't stand anyone this week. I've let petty things cut me down. I need some help with this weight. Something is sitting on my chest. When I walk around it moves to my shoulders. Tell me I'm good, tell me I'm great, and I'll try to believe you long enough to lift the weight, K

Apple Pie!

Dear K, Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Yes. I am so excited for you! New friends are awesome! I make 'em all the time. Last night I had drinks with a very pretty girl. I don't think I'll ask her out again. She wasn't right for me. So tonight I will go out in the rain, with my umbrella and mustache and search for one that is. And tomorrow night I dance. Tomorrow night I dance for days. I shake my hips and waggle my arms, and sweat and stomp and stumble and struggle to the beat. I'm still building my body. I've found some muscles, and my shirts are starting to get tight around my arms. It's weird. I can lift really heavy things now. Someday I'll put this whole damn world on my shoulders, just because I can, K

the blood of job

Dear K- I’ve gone and done my best to break another heart. It wasn’t intentional- when is it ever intentional? The truth is that I am too emotionally fucked up to know right from left. The weirdest part? I’m happy. For some reason, I am having a great time with all this chaos and it’s a spark that has started burning wicks of my consciousness that have been dormant for a long time. It almost leaves me feeling guilty, to take pleasure from the creativity spurned by the angst of myself and those around me… I found some new friends who are damaged goods, just like me. Just like us. Last night we sat around and drank wine, discussing the facets of our lives that we don’t set out for the houseguests to see. We asked each other the thoughtful, probing questions that can only be phrased by a fellow victim and only answered in such company. It was interesting to relive those long buried thoughts and feelings and realize that in some cases, not much has changed. This is shaping up the be a very interesting summer. -K

Alive and Perfect

Dear K, I would encourage you to go out and meet those guys at their bars. You are only this young for a little bit of time, use it. Make bad decisions, meet bad people. I'm learning this slowly, but a date is a date is a date, it doesn't have to mean anything more than that. If you find someone you like, then you find someone you like, if you don't there's always the next one, and who says that it has to end back at someone's place. Anyway, what I'm saying is what I've always said to you: get out there. Make new friends, meet new people, meet everyone. I promise you everyone you will ever meet is interesting and worthwhile in their own way. Sure sometimes it takes a little work and mental stretching to find that nugget of golden humanity, but it is there every single time. I love people and I haven't met one that I'm not happy to have met, even the ones I don't like. I am enthralled with the idea that we all exist. In fact we shouldn't exist. The very fact that I breath, in fact the very fact that there is matter, let alone the fact that there is an entity that can contemplate existence, is unbelievably amazing and rare. I've been reading about the big bang, and I guess we shouldn't exist at all, but we do, and we know it, and oh my goodness we're all just little bubbles of beautiful improbability, and every moment we get, joy, sorrow, pain, suffering, ecstasy, all of it, is a wonderful rare beautiful thing. I am in love again, and it is with life. Please join me, When we have the time, and we will, I expect a dance, K

babylon

Dear K- I am glad that you are feeling well these days. I, too, have started to be active again after a month of distraction. It wasn’t by choice- my life was thrown into turmoil and the first thing to be sacrificed were the activities I enjoyed but which were not necessary- exercise being one of them. But now I have also rediscovered the morning. I’m remembering the feeling of awakening at the same moment as the sun, then running out to greet it before the dew evaporates and before the birds begin their dawn chorus. There is a comfort to running alone in the morning that I cannot feel at any other time of day. It is like a prolonging of the dream state- my mind still wanders along pondering this and that while my feet plod on the asphalt. Today I thought about what it means to be alone. I made the mistake of admitting to my newfound sense of unattachment last night at work. As soon as word got out that I was single I had coworkers lingering at my desk, casually hyping up their favorite bar and dropping unsubtle hints that I could find them there after our shift if I was looking for some fun. Am I looking for fun? I don’t even know anymore. These days, fun is sitting in a coffee shop in the early morning with a good book, or walking my dog around the park, or just spending an evening watching a movie and laughing with a loved one. I was never one for cheap thrills and one night stands. My heart isn’t strong enough for that sort of behavior. Keep up the physical activities. I’ve always found it to be relaxing and bring a sense of purpose and accomplishment to my life. Pitter patter thud thud thud, -K

I'm Gonna Build Me A Body

Dear K, Something wonderful has happened to me in the last week. I've remembered how much I love moving. It started with dancing,as all good things do. I went out for an evening of dancing and came back a younger me than I've seen in years. I am running again. I joined the YMCA. I've been lifting weights. I lifted so much my arms hang down by my sides, loose little dumb things that can't grip or raise or move, and they wake me in the middle of the night screaming in pain. I'm doing it right. I used to be so strong. I could lift a house and sweep underneath it. I could ride my bicycle faster and further than any man in the county. I was Hercules, I was Ajax, I was Achilles, I was Hector, I was Zeus, I was a mighty hundred armed giant. Then somewhere along the way I left my sinews. I dropped them by the side of the road. I told myself someday I'd be back for them, there wasn't enough time. I'm finding them again, slowly, it is going to take some months, but I will be bigger and stronger than I ever was. I will throw you up in the air and catch you in my arms and run a hundred miles, and laugh and giggle the whole way. I am building myself a body. I am going to become a beast of the earth. I am going to become a buffalo, a bull, an elephant. I will be Atlas and hold the sky up for you, K

empty chords

Dear K-

I know your ghosts. We are haunted by the same shadows of loneliness and doubt, the pathetic uncertainty that we’ll ever be loved by anyone who we love as much. Someday we will die. Will there be someone at our side, someone with whom we have grown old? What if there is nothing but a dark, bleak emptiness and my emergency contact is someone I hardly even know?

We’ve lost. We’ve lost again and again. You left your pain in Missouri, I left mine abroad. Let’s face it: we’re not the luckiest when it comes to succeeding in love, no matter how much anyone tells us we deserve better. We can paint it up and try to disguise it anyway we please- with pretty words smattered upon a yellowing page, with pints of whiskey and cheap cigarettes, by burying ourselves in our work and proving that we can be good at something…but in the end there’s still that emptiness. The whiskey can’t wash it all away- I still remember how it feels to fall asleep in someone’s arms and feel comforted by the knowledge that you’ll wake up to their smile in the morning. Maybe you’ll go get breakfast. Maybe you’ll stay in bed all morning and waste away the day. Who cares?

But what now, when I lay alone and don’t have the comfort of anyone? Perhaps I’m still in denial, expecting an apologetic phone call or an invitation to dinner. I check the phone. I check the mail. But I’m still alone. Phone lies dormant, dead, on the windowsill. Mail is nothing but bills and advertisements for the local grocer.

Don’t mistake me. This has happened before, which is perhaps why it makes me feel so ashamed and disgusted with myself. But it also brings the experience of knowing this will pass. For now I can only get along the best I know how, trying not to think of what I’ve lost. But we’re always going to be reminded, aren’t we?

Try not to regret. We’re the better for all our mistakes and missteps, as painful as they may be. Perhaps we will never obtain the promise that has been made to us since we were children. But I’d rather not think of that for now.

Regret nothing.
-K

Every God Damned Minute.

Dear K,

This is not about what happened tonight. This is about what happened last night. Last year. The year before that, and most of the ones I can remember before that.

I talked on the phone to her for an hour and a half. The whole time I thought about what could have been. I loved her. She was my moon, my stars, my oceans of fire. I set my days in her orbit. I set my nights down beside her.

All the pretty words I wrote. The tragic tears of ink I shed. The hurt the joy and the pain. I'm lost without them now. I cut those things out of my heart. I cut her out of my life. Now, here I am in my little river town, and I'm not sure about tomorrow, or the day after that, or the one that follows.

I used to be so certain. I was a rock of faith. I had this love and even though it hurt me and cut me, I knew it was there and it would always be there. Then I woke up and moved away, and cut that part of myself off, and left it to die in Missouri.

I miss that part of myself. I miss that desperation. That pointless agony. The longing the ache.
I'm not sure I would undo what I did. Even if I could.

The truth is I loved her more because she didn't love me. I loved the tragedy. The everyday sorrow of it. I felt like I was young Werther.

But that's all gone now. It's blown away out of me. Soon I will forget.

But yeah it was worth it.

Every minute,

K

what was our love worth if it was something we could gamble

dear k-

sometimes we fall out of sync with the momentum visualized in our mind. hopefully by now you've found your breath and managed to slip back into the appropriate current. if not, then i wish you a thorough if not speedy recovery.

i'm still killing days, walking around the city on a pendulum between satisfying productivity and crippling loneliness. some days come easier than others, but the slew of mixed signals and doubt do nothing to ease the passing of the hours. i don't like to analyze excerpts of speech and rerun conversations in my head, but if i'm given contradictory sentiments that leave me doubting my interpretations then i really don't have a choice. it's painful and humiliating and it's a shame.

in a month i'll be moving to a new apartment. i'm living alone next year. in all honesty i am actually very excited about the prospect, although i fear that if i am given too much time living by myself i am only going to make myself miserable. i want to go out in this city and make new friends. i want to create a social network independent of my studies. but you know that such interactions do not come with ease to me, and so i will most likely remain hovering on my fire escape and listening to the summer sounds of the city.

try to feel better, friend. hopefully you will be your irksome, perpetually merry self in no time.

what was it worth,
-k

Dear K,

Today I am sick. Today I am under the ocean. Today I am not where I am supposed to be, and this body isn't working right. Today I wish I was a cyborg in Japan. Today I want to be in a story. Today I don't want to breath. Today I have taken two baths. Today I have slept for 16 hours. Today I moved my car and ate white rice.

Tomorrow I hope the wind calms down. Tomorrow I hope I can feel the sun for a little while.

Sometimes this timeline doesn't suit me,

K

a task

Dear K-

I feel miserable inside and out. but you gave me a task...so here is the beginning.

1. I have long, slender fingers.
2. I have the annoying ability to remember everything that transpires when I am drunk. It is both a blessing and a curse.
3. Sometimes I can be fairly sociable.
4. I can drink whiskey neat...and I like it.
5. I have never stabbed someone or tried to stab someone.
6. I try to keep reasonably fit.
7. I appreciate a good cup of black coffee and greasy spoon diners.
8. Sometimes I eat fruit.
9. I don't eat meat.
10. I've never let myself be pigeonholed into a cliche appearance- when I get complacent with my routine I add something new and try to change everything I can.
11. I do not use computer lingo or shorthand unless I am being ironic. I find it cheap and disgraceful.

...that is all I can come up with at the moment.

-K

Dear K,

In response:

NOPE.

I am perfect.
I am a bright brilliant shining star of humanity.
I am the joy of nations.
I am the thunderous laughter that shakes mountains.
I am the rain in spring, the sun in summer.
I am starlight and moonbeams.
I am a towering fortress.
I am an open plain.
I am clouds.
I am trees.
I am grass.
I am leaves.
I am wind.
I am rust.
I am fire.
I am dust.
I am that which you cannot take.
I am given freely for all to eat.
I am the second coming.
I am modest.

The world doesn't wait for me, and I will not wait for it.
I am a small insignificant drop.
I am a blink, a blip, a sigh, a wisp.
I am an illusion.
I have no time left to weep.
I will spend the rest of my life laughing, or die trying.
I am bold.
I am brave.
I am strong.
I am true.

I don't care that you hate yourself sometimes.
I don't care that you think so lowly of yourself you cry.
I don't care that you can't love me, I love myself enough for two.
I don't care that you're sad and think you're broken.

You are not. You are fine, and young and strong.
So buck the fuck up and move your shit along.
(but really take like maybe two weeks, because it really sucks to put all that time and effort into a relationship, and then be told it isn't a relationship)

But after those two weeks, sing some fucking happy songs,

K.

OUT.

we are two unloveable entities

dear k-

somedays i don't like who i am at all.

i didn't cry until now, when i decided to write you back. i made it through the whole day, but i can't do it anymore. i could no longer pretend that i wasn't hurt.

reading your letter cuts deep. i know now how you feel. i am never good enough. it doesn't matter how many people tell me i'm smart, pretty, funny, whatever- fuck it. it's either not true or just a waste of time. i am a waste of space. i toll out tireless amounts of emotion, effort, and attention and what do i always receive in return?

emptiness.

do i present myself as someone who doesn't need affection? why do i seem to effortlessly manage to find the relationships where the opposite party never wishes to return my investments?

how hard these words fall upon my ears at 3 am, with their slow drunken drawl, so matter of fact as if it were simply recounting the weather report for the next day: "i don't think i want to date anyone. you're great, but i don't know about dating. i don't know."

give me a fucking reason. tell me why this didn't come up 6 months prior. don't invite me over in the middle of the night and then suddenly stumble upon this realization. don't act surprised when i seem "serious" and "grumpy" afterwards.

i am so sorry. i am so sorry. i know how it feels. i cannot give you any better reason than what every single one of them give me. i just don't know. it's okay if you want to hate me for it. i don't hate them, but mostly i just feel disappointment in myself.

i don't like myself some days.

will i someday look back on this and have no regrets?
-k

Self-Pity, Apologies and Inquiries

Dear K,

Should I begin with an apology? Is that necessary? I don't think so. Not for what I said. They were pretty words, and well meant. Maybe with an apology for what follows. This isn't going to be fun, but these letters have never been about fun. They've always been about sharing scrapes and scars and insecurities.

So, I'm sorry. What follows is a swamp of self-pity.

Excuse this indulgence, but it has been made clear to me that I will be alone for a very long time. I have come to terms with this. I like living alone. I like sleeping alone. I work well alone. When I come home at night there is no one to wake. There is no one to endlessly recount my days to. I don't have to fill in someone else on the trivia of my increasingly mediocre existence. I can escape into other lives. I can eat dinner at 9 PM and leave the dishes in the sink. I have become very good at being alone.

I don't need your apologies or sympathy. Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate both, and I am glad for the company, but I won't break down when they aren't offered. I'm glad you replied. But I knew from the moment I thought of that first sentence, I knew how the exchange would end. I knew even when I sent you that drunken ramble what would happen. I knew it all. There was no hope in the words I wrote with drunken fingers. There never could be. We may be star-crossed, but we certainly aren't lovers.

But sometimes K, you have to run into the wall. Sometimes you have to break yourself against reality. Hope is important. What's more, is acting on hope. It is important to leap and fall and bleed.

Can I ask you something in reply?

Why?

And understand that I don't want or need you to have any feelings other than friendship for me. I'm not begging for anything, and I am not pathetic. I simply don't understand this continued response.

I have crafted myself into this person, and no one seems to want it.

Tell me why. There has never been a good enough reason. It is always just that lack of spark. There is something missing.

Someday I would like to know what I am missing,

K

a few hours later

Dear K-

I left the café as twilight began to set in, the rain now abated and the air still slightly cooled from its caress. That café was draining me, with the bitter coffee eroding away my insides and leaving me dejected and brooding. But when I left and stepped out into that first breath of twilight, hearing the city bubble before me, my mood lifted. Puddles like pools of liquid mercury were electrified with neon from the display signs of restaurants, bars, and shops, rippling like Technicolor seismographs whenever someone stepped into one. Birds called out to each other from unseen roosts.

As I walked back to my apartment I stopped at a corner and watched the flickering of the “don’t walk” across the street. Two lovers stood entwined beneath it, hands in each other’s pockets, pecking kisses while staring deep into each other’s eyes. It actually made me laugh. Sometimes we look so foolish.

In the twilight I lazily ambled home, enjoying the spring air and the calm. I thought about how I wanted to proceed with my life, and I felt at ease. What a difference a peaceful walk can make to your disposition.

You’ve got to live your life the best way you know how.
-K

clockdial refraction

Dear K-

You told me to get it together. I thought I’d give it a try. When I feel rejected, alone, or bitter, I tend to do what I do best: retreat into my work. I slipped out of clinic early today to establish myself at a café and spend a few hours preparing for the exams to come. So here I am, alone, perched on a stool and watching pedestrians sprint through the rain outside as they get unexpectedly caught in the spring downpour. My notes are spread out before me and I have already pounded through a few lectures. But the productivity isn’t bringing enough satisfaction to fill the stale, hovering dullness that aches within me.

It was good to hear your voice yesterday. The rest of my night progressed rather smoothly, coasting on the enjoyable conversation. Unfortunately, with the heat has returned my insomnia, and I spent most of the night lying awake on starchy sheets listening to the hum of electricity and mulling over the decisions of my life.

I am dragging along. It is frustrating because I know I should hold my head up and realize that things are actually quite good: I am in a prestigious program and working towards a potentially prosperous future career, I am surrounded by friendly people, the weather is warming up and the flowers are starting to bloom. I spent a summer with my heart hooked up to computers with doctors telling me I had only weeks to live- this should seem like no real misfortune in comparison.

But then why do I still feel this way? Am I trying to hold on, trying to keep myself from forgetting what it’s like to feel loved, rather than moving along and shrugging off the disappointment? I’ve made it this far- can I not hold out for one more week? But what if after a week he’s not willing to pick up where the game left off?

Fuck it. I am lucky to be alive. Forget the rest- only remember that I am lucky to be alive.

It’s a beautiful and intricate world we live in today.
-K

I Have No Memory

Dear K,
I don't have those moments. I don't have childhood. I spent it on liquor and cigarettes and silence and dumb little things that I thought would fill that little hole called my esophagus, or at least clog it for a minute. There are flashes now and then, there's a field of green and the smell of grass. Cool morning air, and sound and light. Everything gets hazier the harder I focus on them, and I lose the fight and start imagining the time I threw a dart at the wall and spent a week in my room.


I've caught your blues and I've thrown them all around my room. I found a spider in my salad tonight and threw at my television.

I've been in this place for close to 48 hours straight. I left to take the garbage out and that's it. It doesn't seem like the time went anywhere, but where does the smoke go from all the fires around the city? It gets high enough and disappears. There must be some holes up there we just can't find them with our metal wings.

Why is it so lonely in this crowded room? Who are these idiots calling me now? What do they want with me? I'm not that funny. I'm not a creature of light and shadows, I made myself from clay and wasted paper, receipts and cigarette butts, ashes smeared along a wall.

I'm not broken down, I was never really working, just skipping down the hall.

I don't want company, I just want someone to think of me, when they think of all the moments of their life, because I built myself without a memory.

Come on,
Get it together,
K

oh my god, it still means a lot to me

Dear K-

It brought a smile to my lips, if nothing else. I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to fall back upon you whenever I stumble and to let you gently chide me for being a foolish little bird and somehow manage to calm my neurotic tics. Sometimes I fall apart a little and the stitches pull too tight and the threads begin give way. But there you are, needle poised ready between two clumsy digits, ready to wet the threads with blood if that be what it takes to set it all right again. Please don’t tell anyone about the bad days. Please don’t tell them that some days I don't think I’m worth much at all.

In the garden of my parents’ house, back when I was young, I remember I would beg my mother to fill the beds with daffodils. I would thumb through the seed catalogs we received in the mail and circle all the varieties I wanted to order to fill the garden. There were miniature daffodils, daffodils of soft white and peach, some of almost neon yellow hues, and even some that looked like scrambled eggs. Come March and April, as soon as I saw the first purple peeping of the crocus, I knew that soon my garden would be aglow.

It made me happy. Everything about them warms me- their cheerful demeanor, their light pollen scent, even the way the frothy sap drips from their thick stalks when I harvested them to fill the vases in my bedroom. Once I even brought a bouquet to school and handed out individual flowers to friends. I don’t think they appreciated it as much as I would have.

Around this time of year, now that I’m older, I think back to my parents’ garden and miss it a little. And you know I don’t often miss anything at all…But the daffodils, these I do miss.

I miss daffodils.

Thank you for being there,
-K

Diffident Daffodils Die Dramatically During Droughts.

Dear K,

This letter shall be a fantasy. It isn't true or real, but let it exist for a moment before you wave your hands and scatter the dust.

Flowers for you my dear would be a pleasure. I would order a store out of them if I could. A whole Pullman Car of fresh-cut flowers. Enough to damn a thousand gardeners and gatherers to a life of crooked backs and stiff necks. Just to see you smile and laugh and box my shoulder. Of course I would do this in an instant.

Fields and fields of daisies, azaleas, forget-me-nots, mums, roses, black-eyed-susans, snapdragons, bluebells, thistles, dandelions, sunflowers, tiger lilies, all of them planted haphazard as if God had taken a shotgun loaded with seeds and shot the Earth, and of course, my secret is that I know your secret, so of course there would be daffodils thousands of millions of them.

A hill of daffodils, and on that hill I'd build a house of them. A flower house with flower chairs, and flower tables, and flower couches, and flower stairs, and flower cupboards, and flower stools, and a flower chimney, and a flower walls. We'd get dizzy from the scent, and our heads would swim and droop and fall asleep in the sunlight, drowsing to the thrum of bees.

My dear K, wouldn't that be awful to live in a flower house? I wouldn't do any of that, it wouldn't be right. Think of all the wasted pocket money, and trouble and time, and what if it rains or the wind blows? What if rabbits come and eat the foundations? What if all the native species are choked and die because of all these flowers I planted? Yes this is a thing I should not, and could not do.

But what a sad thought it is, if the world ended and nobody ever built a flower house?

K.

P.s.

This is what I believe you were talking about when we talked about romance. A wild fool's fever dream of promises and intents. Impractical, illogical, and unwanted. But, I think these moments are some of the minutes most worth living.

Again,
Yours,
K

But the words are oh so pretty.

Dear K,

In regards to your last post, it is so simple. These are the faults I love you for. So, yes, yes, and yes.

You know, and I know that our relationship will only ever be these words. But these words are so very pretty.

You didn't scare me away. I was just drawn into other parts of my life. I've been portioning my time between work and comedy, and it seems as if everything else has fallen off my radar. I apologize for this, I'm sure you know what it is like though.

It has been almost a whole month since you wrote. I am curious about your life now. Tell me about it.

This post is weak, I apologize
I will make it up to you in the future,

Regards,
K

black body radiator

Dear K-

You are not the first to have fallen in love with me over letters. I appear so much better on paper, it seems.

I know you don’t want me- you want the idea of me. And what a lovely idea I may appear, with all these frothy words at my lips floating away like sweet, opalescent soap bubbles into a still summer’s afternoon. You confess as Saint Augustine- not in love, but in love with the idea of love. I cannot blame you. Have I not found myself in a similar predicament before, loving the images I create in the cinema of my mind rather than fully recognizing the original model for what it is, for what it was…How could I ever live up to such fanciful whims?

I laugh when I’m nervous. I don’t sing well on command. I have a fear of flying, elevators, heights, but not necessarily in that order. Large crowds make me nervous. The idea of a picnic always seems so much better than the reality- eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a soggy lawn while trying to keep the wind from blowing my hair into my mouth while I take bites, all while fighting off the insects. I’m allergic to a laundry list of usually enjoyable ingredients. My curves are mostly bones. My hands and feet are always ice at night. I toss and turn and occasionally have insomnia. I can’t dance. My voice falters and my nerve pitters out on arguments, even if small. My heart doesn’t let me run like I used to. I am sarcastic, cynical, and frequently will not admit to my motives. I don’t like to discuss plans. I break promises and never commit. I am no perfect soul.

When you say it as you do, it all sounds lovely. But that’s a story book- and you can feel free to write me in however you see fit. I can be your heroine or I can be the shadow that falls upon the dust in the corner.

As I write this I am distracted by the frailty of life. I saw a man crack open the back of his skull outside the café this weekend. I had been there for several hours, quietly drinking my poison and studying proposed mechanisms of autoimmunity. I had noted him, but no more than I would note any other passing customer. I didn’t know that I would see his blood. I didn’t know that I’d see him lying prone upon the pavement, twitching as a scarlet puddle formed a halo beneath his head.

I watched as they rolled him onto a stretcher and they asked if I knew anything about him. Just a slow, solemn shake of the head-no words, just the universal, nonverbal sigh of “I don’t know”. It has been hard to concentrate on my work. All I could think as he shivered on the ground was “I wonder if he has incurred any macular vision loss from the blow to his occipital lobe. I wonder how long it will take before the platelets and fibrin form a clot. I wonder if woven bone will start to form to heal the fractures in his skull.”

I am not who you write about. I am a terrible person who wishes I could be all the things you say.
-K

These Are The Most Romantic Things I've Ever Said, And It Is The Whiskey Talking

My Dear K,

Let's get married to the idea of each other. I am in love with my picture of you. Sometimes romantically, sometimes not. We are never the same together as we are apart. How have we come this far with so much time and space between us? When I saw you this New Years Eve we talked very little, we caught up, but it wasn't enough.

I'm going to write some things now that might sound romantic but they are not. If you take my meaning as I wish to communicate it we will carry on as before, because none of what follows is really about you, but also, it is about you.

When I read your letters, I want to hold you and kiss your lips and feel your hair in my hands. I want the warmth of your body next to mine. I want the music of your awkward laugh in my ears. I want to lift you up and hold you there. I want to come home to you. I love you and everything you are. I imagine you in sunlight with green all around you. I imagine you in the dark, next to me, our breath hot on each other's necks. I see you in my dreams. I wait for you in empty rooms. I feel the space next to me in my empty bed and I feel the curves of your body that I've never felt. It feels like home. I want to walk with you in parks. I want to go on picnics in the rain with you. I want to hold an umbrella above you. I want to hold car doors open for you. I want to laugh at jokes only between us. I want to go to a distant land with you. I want to play chess. I want to drink with you. I want to laugh with you. I want to sing with you. I want to hear bands play music only for us. I want to kiss in the rain, and in the wind, and in the snow, and in sunlight. I want to feel your sweat. I want to hand you kleenexes when you sneeze. I want to say "Bless You". I want to hold back your hair when you vomit. I want to hold your hand as we wait for bad news from the doctor. I want only you to laugh at my jokes. I want to stand next to you and wash dishes. I want to plant a garden with you. I want to argue with you and know that the argument isn't bigger than us. I want to you to take care of me when I'm sick. I want ride the bus with you. I want to ride airplanes with you. I want to sit next to you when I'm old and look back on our lives and know that we lived them well. I want you to try and change me, and I want to resist. I want you to love me. I want you to wear dresses for me. I want to dance with you to songs we're too young to care about. I want to run through fields with you. I want to take a salsa dancing class with you when we fall into tired and boring routines. I never want us to fall into tired and boring routines. I want us to go on cruises and the whole time we'll talk about how nobody should ever go on cruises, because they're the worst. I want romance. I want life. I want love. I want these things, but none of them are you.


You are my friend and confidant, and my sounding board, my constant assurance in a sea of troubles. I want the woman from the letters, and you are not her. Perhaps no one can ever be her. She is a figment of our imagination. I want this relationship I have built with a person made of words. I want to put literature to the test. I want fairy tales to be real. I want love to be real. I want the neurons firing in my brain to mean something. I want something. I want everything. I want. I am wanting. I am waiting.

Do you understand what I am trying to say? Do you understand that aside from this whole post, I love everything that you are and will be? Do you understand that I mean all of this platonically? Do you understand that I feel like we are ships passing in the night? Do you understand that you mean so much to me, even though it will be days or weeks or months since we've communicated? Do you?

I hope you know how much you mean to me.
Even So Far Away,
K

a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all

Dear K-

Though still struggling with a sore throat, I am feeling happier. The days are chugging along as if powered by a mechanical conveyor belt- dragged forward in a never ceasing, steady progression mostly due to long days at work and busy nights. I haven’t spent much time in my apartment lately. I’ve been drifting.

Last night I went out to a smoky bar and chatted with a friendly bartender for a few hours, made a few whiskeys disappear, then trotted back home reeking of cigarettes and liquor. Smoking is banned from many establishments here in the city, so when I do happen to spend a night in a smoking-friendly environment I am reminded of how overwhelming it can be. My eyes water constantly and the scent lingers for days, despite showers and febreeze and laundry detergent. It’s a persistent reminder of the choices I make in the evening hours. But I still go to those bars, mostly because the bartender is nice and she shares my name, so there is that false psychological bond where one thinks more highly of someone due to a common trait. We also have long, double-jointed fingers and a shared appreciation of Jameson and PBR, but that’s another story.

So I appeared different when we met. For me the changes are so gradual that I don’t notice anything, besides something more drastic like when I dye my hair red. But it has faded to copper now- nothing too notable or comment-worthy. You seemed mostly unchanged, except perhaps bigger. I always forget people’s shapes and sizes- I have trouble with body images. In my mind I tend to neglect to include references to height, weight, mass, energy. You’re a fucking bear. I can’t describe it in any better way, and I don’t mean offense by it. I like comparing people to wild animals. You are a fucking bear.

I’d probably be a whip-poor-will.
-K

Up And Over We Go

Dear K

I will always like seeing you. I'll always be a little warmth in the cold. I can't be a roaring fire, but I'll serve to warm your hands and toes. I am glad we had those couple of minutes together, it meant a lot to see you and your new hair color. Had I changed at all?

Am I different every time you see me? Is this how our lives will be from now on? An annual sighting and a weekly letter? At least we'll have those things.

I am losing touch with people that I used to love. The distance is so strange. The times we all had shared, are locked away in my head. I'm just sort of drifting along in the dark up here. Like you would if you climbed around an attic filled with smoke, and I keep putting my feet through the floor.

Someday when you are healthy and ready, maybe you could come see me in my little city.

Regards,
K

ships in the night

Dear K-

I apologize for my lack-luster performance at New Year’s. The only reason I really even bothered to venture out that evening was to say hello to you and also so I wouldn’t be “that girl” who spent her New Year’s Eve tucked under a comforter on her futon watching television by herself. In my defense, I did feel fairly miserable, with the lymph nodes in my neck swollen like golf balls and voice that rasped in and out of audition, but I still wanted to make an appearance. I was interested to see how I would get along with people of my past.

In honesty, I discovered that I don’t get along well, or at least not as well as I perhaps used to socialize with these friends. Granted, we haven’t seen each other in a long time, we’ve all moved along to our various new lives, and I was understandably not at my best. But still, I felt out of place. Not terribly or uncomfortably so, but I could tell that something just wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except possibly my own. Even so, it was nice to have the night out and see old acquaintances, especially you. I could have spent seventy-five dollars on cover to get into a crowded bar where I knew no one’s name and wouldn’t remember anyone regardless, but I had a much better time playing board games in a cluttered apartment with a group of familiars.

Things have been better here. Having returned to the city I feel much better. Illinois brought only insomnia and self-imposed introversion. I am still physically unwell but emotionally much better, slowly recovering a bit more with each day. Not only have there been many friends in town to socialize with but I have actually felt compelled to go out and meet with them. It has been enjoyable.

Unfortunately, with all this new-found excitement there looms the knowledge that the winter intercession is creeping to a close, and soon I will return to my coursework and once again be lost to the world.

Ephemerally,
-K