I've been going through folders of things.. artfully done pages of notes, sketches of classmates and beautiful monsters, poems in varying stages of revision - that make me wonder what happened to that person, the one who wrote these.
This letter was in an envelope labelled LIFE # 1(otherwise unaddressed). There is no indication of who it was intended for, and i suppose it doesn't matter. I'd date it at around the beginning of my second year of college, from fossils in the surrounding strata.
There is not enough time to live with closed fingers.
Actually, not enough time for much.
Stop flirting with me. Stop forever leaving messages or
not noticing me walk by or being on the phone when i knock.
Fall asleep with me.
Let this run through open fingers,
Wake up with me, drifting.
Stop flirting with me. Let's fall out of this fist and wake up driving, with sage on the dashboard and crumbs on our laps and fingers entwined. That's all.
I don't want you to love me forever, damn it,
that's not it. There's no gold or iron involved here at all.
Just air, the spaces between things widening out
and our lives pouring through
like when a shampoo-eyed girl sitting in the bath
realized she could not catch the falling water and opened her hands to let it run over her skin instead. Yeah, that was me.
Sitting here with bubbles in my hair, i feel ridiculous.
I am trying to grasp wind currents, wishing i could make myself someone else
wondering if anything i have ever done was unique
(and if so, am i someone else?)
because i know i am not the only one who has ever loved you
and i know i am not the only sad one.
Somehow, all of these plans have already been done and also
are utterly impossible.
Do you understand?
I know that you lie. I accept it.
It is entirely possible that the addressee was fictional, though real.