letter to c

Dear C

I sat tonight with the intention of writing one of my pals of the pen who're kicking back Eastish but I couldn't bring myself to do it. These must be those growing pains one goes through, mustn't they? It's you my mind keeps turning to It's so familiar a turn, one I take with resentment. But you were my first pal, my best and belovedest, whose letters forked through me like lightning -- Hell! Once I kept a letter of yours under my shirt and by day's end the page had moulded to the contour of my ribs the edge of it sliced a line into my belly and when I peeled it from me some of your words imprinted on my skin. Didn't I pour my silly heart out to you? Didn't I fashion myself into a cup, each gosh darn letter another invitation to drink? Sure I did -- I don't even think I regret it now.

Isn't that foolish? Shouldn't I? But I don't. Regret, and wish myself that life I might have had? I don't want that life. I'm glad I went to you -- I still remember how it felt to love you without hating you. I have to remind myself what the pulse felt like when it wasn't an effort -- that twitterpated, syncopated, oh! skippy frolicksome flutterish racey ol' thing, which you know now I think of as a flavor. But you? I never need remind myself how it felt. Really, the memory adds a certain something to the hate -- it's the light to my moon, darling, and where's the moon without moonlight, where's poetry without the moon? A lot less fun, I say! An owl without feathers or a bat without a song.

I'm sure you don't share my lack of regret.

I don't know what to say to you but I feel so wild and who to talk to about it? It's you my mind keeps turning to. It's you my hand wants to write. Indifference is the perfect revenge, but to Hell with that! I don't want to become indifferent! I don't want to look around and see only that one there is a flake of somebody else's blood, pretending to be its own person! A sock puppet that hasn't realized it's mostly somebody else's fist! That one there would give me to a fire and sleep well! That one there would never be true without an assurance of trueness of the sort only we can get! That one there can never mean anything, because it's May-fly, it's June-bug, it's spit in water, and that one over there will cut my throat just because in that moment it's convenient or looks good or -- ! 

But is it true? Tell me it is. I'd find proof that it wasn't. Tell me I'm alone and better get used to it. I'd show you I wasn't and tell you I'll never settle. Christ I'm a violin! The tiniest one. But only tell me it's inevitable.

I guess the truth is, C, that I'm a little afraid now. Do I remember when I was first afraid of you? Not when I was first afraid of what you were, for I feel, though I do not remember, that I must've been -- that there were moments! You know, fleeting ones, more spit on water sort of things -- afraid of what you were back in the beginning, but it was never you. Until well I guess you can guess about when.

I feel myself stepping back. Because nothing stays, does it? And nobody, and promises are breath and breath is soon spent, and I guess I should be glad I still feel it. I feel so wild. I feel unlatched and I just want

I do still believe in the ability of one to determine one's course in life. This is life. This is not the life we were born to perhaps but it is life anyway -- why deny that it is? When did it become so fashionable and so boring to substitute survival with living? I believe in the power of the human spirit or soul or animus or will whatever you'd like to call it against that cold ol' inevitability, that 'fate,' and I believe there's nothing worse than living in chains, but I believe that living in chains one's still got the opportunity to free oneself -- but even believing this, I feel an inevitable conclusion coming on. Because what hope is there, against it? Tell me there's none so I can tell you there is some.

I want to slough off this waiting, this longing, this coldness -- come to me, why don't you? Distract me.