4.

Dear Things,

I want to do you.

I want to do you in the most licentious and reckless way, and then - cards meet table - I will probably want to do you again.

We are in a kinetic recession and I cannot afford inhibitions.

It is always so easy at the end of a good day to swear by you: I will do things. I will rise before the sun, go on a morning jog, cook real breakfast, and then maybe write a fantastical novel and travel to Greece, or some other place where it is an acceptable hobby to get lost; rinse, repeat. Adventure Is Out There, I will rejoice - bumper sticker bold.

You come in more forms than I can recognize, and every time, you give to me. Mischievous and playful, you bleed innocent mirth and the warm promise of analgesia. When you beckon, it is a dance, and if you are a tease, then you are the most beautiful one I know.

But I am sorry, too, because it is never about you (whatever you are) or even what you give me so much as what I take from you. I steal your drive in the form of electric soles on my feet and hard-stuttering limbs. You are the surge inside of me, feather light and absolutely directionless - just out, forward, above, now now now. When you are new, you turn me into the very best kind of fear, hot and demanding. Suddenly, I am six heartbeats ahead of myself, and six minutes behind schedule, and I love you.

I love you for the way I do not notice you at all. On slow mornings, I notice around: cold raindrops on my eyelashes and strangers across streets who might as well be across universes. On fast nights, I notice nothing at all but the way doing you - any you - owns me. With you, I am belly laughs a little too loud and glazed eyes not nearly absorbent enough. I am flushed spirits - the easiest air.

I only wanted to write for myself, but you beg me to do for myself, too.

Fine, then. A pleasure to make your acquaintance... We'll be in touch.

3.

Dear Self,

I know it hurts right now. He sped away on the train 48 minutes ago and you felt yourself break the moment you stepped out of the station. You walked in with him and walked back out alone. Believe me, I know how much that hurts.

But you need to remember that you have no regrets, that every word, every touch was real and true and beautiful. So even though you are breaking (and yes, this is breaking-- you can feel the hole, the tear), know that you walked into the station the same way you walked out: loved.

You sit wiping your nose now, feeling the sting, and letting the song you used to think was heartwarmingly sexy wash over you, dulling your hurt. You realize how easy it is now to pick out what is real and what isn't, (and this is oh-so-fake), now that you know. And you smile, because even though he is still gone, and you can literally feel his absence, as well as the pain that comes with it, you know you have him to thank for this new insight, this new little discerning superpower.

This makes you feel close to him. And goddamn, if that isn't the most beautiful thing.

Love,
You, from a better place

2.

Dear Free Spirit,

You were the grace. You were the hard, cold beauty and the soft, warm pain, and I never wanted you.

I only wanted to violently ink you onto scratchy paper and carve you into pale skin and it's funny - I don't think you ever would have been more real, more tangible, more here. I wanted saturated black letters and hope in white spaces. I wanted to fold you into loudly starched pages and forget you in the dirtied water draining at my feet.

You were the hum and the echo and the spaces in between: I could never hold you, and that made me feel weak. You shouted politics, hunger, bladder needs and all, so brazenly confident we cared, but you never answered to us - the master of confrontation, never once confronted. You will never read this letter, and I will never know why I wrote it, but at least I know now - I loved you, but it wasn't you I wanted.

Maybe I wanted to stumble across you via the product of me again come years from today and remember that you were the hard, cold beauty and the soft, warm pain, but I wrote you into words. I wrote you into truth (and in return, you let me bloom).

I made you.

But I never wanted you.

I'm sorry,

Chloe

"Yes. The fundamental mistake I had always made -- and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make -- was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl." (John Green, Paper Towns)

1.

Deceptively playful, you are upbeat and tragic, you are the trills fluttering around in the quiet background, subtle and resilient. You are green-blue specks of heartbreak, of ocean foam-- you are one beautiful, maddening part of the grand build-up to the line that pulled me apart two years ago and continues to wreak havoc on my heart today. ("You go on and I'll be happier.")

But I love you. You let me sad-smile at my canvas alone in the back closet. (But I wasn't really alone. After all, you were there.) You let me feel the waves of hurt, you taught me to imagine that they were made of ocean, and so I loved you every night he was gone. And I loved you every morning, as I was cooped up and crowded, methodically making dusty purple clouds, as if producing the perfect rolling desert clouds could somehow blow him back to me. You helped me cope. Shame on me for feeling this surge of gratitude only because I need you again.