A Letter To You.

Dear You,

I wake up in the morning to feel that I am part of some vintage movie reel, dying while it fades, fades, fades. Fades until someone, an evil grin, a malicious smile, it rips apart the memories, takes the reel and runs with it through evening winds screeching behind it, wanting it back, wanting it back, wanting it back. Oh, I am vintage. Oh, you are vintage. Black and white, black and white. I see you again and again, in black and white, in dimmed colours and distorted sounds; screaming - screeching, loud and clear. And you. You come along and say and say and say. I write and write and write letters I will never send, letters my ink will never know, nor eyes will ever read. Letters of patience and of goodness still trying to breathe through screams, through thumping silence. Thud, thud, thud. Silence. Do you hear it? Vintage as ever can be. You give me words that I could say with beautiful grace and I could twirl around and around and be honest. Completely honest and brutally simple, brutally heartbreaking, brutally beautiful. Just like a vintage movie reel. Oh, you and I are part of it all, part of it all, part of it all.

But no - the later hours of the day arrive and there is a burst of colours. Have I told you again and again and again - that there is sepia and it is wavering. And then the sunshine from the heavens, the sunshine from my present, the colours of the now- the yellow and the bright and the pink - it bursts forth and it is too much for me to take. Madness. Madness in me. Madness in my colours as I try to run and collect them all - the yellow and the bright and the pink - but oh, how the sepia chases me. How the black and white runs after me and corners me and lets me scream while I hand over my colours so it can devour it completely, completely, completely.

Dear friend, so far I have not stopped even once to erase these words or to think over what they are or what I have written, and it feels good. It feels good to not stop, to run free, to be unheard, unread, unheard, unread. It feels good to have fought and fought with myself until I am dying inside of me. No, there is a part of me that dies and comes to life so it fills me completely, every inch of me until I am consumed, consumed. Wasted away, oh how they waste me away. My wonder. Your wonder. How we waste it away.

Dear friend, I am a universe. I have told you. I have. I am a universe and I will never cease to be. You will find me; you will always find me because I am there. I am there while the clouds cry, I am there while the sun shines, I am there while people die and people live; I watch it all until I am a part of it. Until I start living what you and they are living. I am a part of it. I will never leave. No, not completely. You will hear a trace of my words following you around and you will hear me when you won’t. You will see me when you won’t. Oh, yes. That is to be human. To be, to be, to be. To be forever.

Perhaps these are what my thoughts have been as I have let them jumble up and about in my head. Perhaps this is what they’d be like if I ever meant to write them. But I didn’t. I meant to write to you. This is for you.

Thank you for listening.

Love,
Me.

i do not know how
or where to sit and break -
perhaps on a mossy, wet log
quite as helpless as i
but the nearby town shall be busy and
the sun will be high -
and beside a quiet lake
quiet as inconsequent as me
i will talk to the waters – unheard all the same
of how the wind does not hear me when
i plead and i say –
won’t you take me away
won’t you take me away

A Letter To No One.

Dear You,

If I was not afraid to say it, I'd tell you that I dream in little pieces, in little secrets that hold me together and my fixed gazes at nothing at all, when even the clatter of hammer and bricks and drills cannot drown the sounds out  - my sounds. And if I was not afraid to tell you, I'd tell you how I cannot stop wondering about the wind because it is nothing at all and I can still almost see it and it takes my breath away. And if I was not afraid of sounding insane, I'd tell you that the colours - the blur of red and blue and silver and even a sudden stroke of yellow - they've come to stay and with grace, because there are some of them that do not go away. And I see them, some of them - the red and the blue and the silver - even in the lazy shades of summer.

Dear friend, you can call upon me when you need me but call, so I know. Because you will look and you will look around and wonder where I am and what I am up to. And I'll be right there, hiding in the warmth of my own thoughts, needing to be called upon and afraid that I will never be. And I could tell you that I look into words like I look into the mirror, and that I taste them again and again, and that I look, I search for the splits like stubborn cracks on dead earth. So I can know. And decide. If they were meant for me or not at all. But I will choose to be silent because I am afraid that you will walk away and never call upon me. And I will feel as if I chased away those calls along with you. And I will be still and take each wonder and take it as my own. For I am of the world, I am of the heavens, I am of destiny - and what will always belong to me is my wonder. Dear friend, no one can take away the wonder from me because I will find it. It will always be there to call upon me. I need not be afraid.

Yes, I need not be afraid. But I afraid I am. Although I have come to accept that what does not come my way was never mine and there is goodness in God's decisions. Sometimes I think destiny is only a matter of where you and I will get - and how we get there will be ours, and only ours to decide. Perhaps there and only there lies the struggle and our choice of choices. And in the end, it does matter. Because no matter what anyone tells me, what ever I may bring upon myself - even the slightest bit of emotion - it is mine to give to myself and take it away as well. I choose to harbour it when it is a part of me, and I choose to be okay when I let go of it. And God? God will give me the strength to hold on to what is right.

You must forgive me for my incoherence, dear friend, because I have wanted to shed some of these words so that they do not weigh me down. If I could paint, I would paint for you a rose, patiently sitting on a  window sill somewhere in the city so that when the rain would die away a little, you could go out in your rain coat and boots with a telling smile and find it, because it would be meant for you. And you would, after searching and searching - a lot of searching - you'd find someone kind enough to open their apartment door and examine you strangely, then burst into a smile. And they'd tell you to walk right in and get what was rightfully yours. Have faith. There are people out there still. Meant for you and me.

Dear friend, there is a page in my notebook that tells me that you and I, we are life's little jars. That life will pour into us a mix of smiles and tears and cries and laughter and red roses and sunshine and it will pour it all in. In different proportions, at different times and different mixtures but we could all be the same size. Jars. And when I find a friend like you, I will pour some of my rainbow-coloured-life-in-a-jar in yours, and we will share and share to live. We will be okay.

I have a lot of hope still. I am infinitely grateful, I am infinitely blessed. And this time, dear friend, truly - I thank you for listening.

Love,
Me.

A Letter To No One.

Dear You,

Things have quietened down a bit for a moment, because there are no thumping sounds of hammers and bricks and drills hard at work outside in the summer breeze anymore. And I feel good again because I have been part of this Friday's colours and I have smiled and collected laughter in return. So I must write to you once more because I have been wondering far too much for me to be at peace, and I trust you to keep these thoughts safe for me.

There have been a lot of moments lately when I have found myself looking at what I have never seen before and listening to what I could not have imagined. And it frightens me for the most part because it is like being handed a new thread altogether, to untangle and make a pattern out of even though I am unfamiliar. I do admit that unfamiliarity makes me squirm, especially when I find it in people and things I've come to know by heart. And how it interferes with how I have painted them with colours and words and lingering images. Then there is distortion. But I must not be ungrateful. I have come to know that you and I, we are infinite. And that there will always be a lot to find, a lot to make sense out of, but that's okay. Because there will be so much more to find wonder in, and so much more to learn to love. And I will never grow tired.

Yesterday night had been silent so I'd been thinking. About April Letters. Because it sounds fascinating to me. April Letters. To hold a soft, brown parchment - the colour of Patience, and to read and to keep reading, in the light of the piercing sunshine by day, and beside a quiet lampshade in the evening. To read of Lady April, as she pulls in the summer heat behind her and stops at the sight of you at the window to smile at you, and how with a graceful wave of a hand, she reminds you that she cannot, she will not stay for long. Dear friend, I cannot cease to believe in beauty and you mustn't either. And if you'd like to, we will go looking for it to find us. In April and always; forever more.

I have something else to tell you, too. That I have found a lot of power in prayer. And while that may not sound too profound, I must tell you that I have felt like I am listened to. Incoherent as my prayers are, I have learnt to mean them and believe in them before they come pouring out on the prayer mat. I have learnt to believe that I will be given what I was meant to be given. And then they work. I may not get what I want but things happen for the better. And I am grateful. Maybe I just had to learn to believe in my own prayers. I do now. I feel at peace.

And I do not believe that life is unfair. God is good, because what I do not get, was never mine. You must understand that life hastens to bring good to other people too and there are so many people to take care of. You must understand and you must never lose hope. Your time will come when your time will come.There is a lot of justice still. The floor beneath my feet, the roof above my head. You and I, we're infinitely blessed.

Thank You for listening.

Love,
Me.