Wednesday, August 20, 2008

color of how

Sophia,

I will find you among the rushes and watercress; I will dig for you in the clay; I will paint you on brand-new canvas. I will not let go of myself.
I know you don't love me anymore; isn't that the way we all go? There's distance and then there's an empty mailbox and then we stop loving. Then one day we stop breathing and realize that life without loving is like water without wetness. What is that good for? So, I will not stop loving you, no matter how much my eyes crack.
I don't know what I'm saying. And it seems like all I can do is crack. Cracked cracking firecracker crack my eyes open. The color of how to bleed.
If you burn this before reading it, I think I will love you more than ever. Something is not right with me. I feel like a cloud dissolving into the great vast solvent of sky.
Sophia, your name rests in my teeth like so many leaves and I smell you in woodsmoke and you are the space between galaxies. But all my pretty phrases can't make me pretty.
Sophia, if you don't answer this I promise I will die of fulfilled expectations.
I love you, Sophia.

Thomas Street

9 comments:

. said...

this is gorgeous. maybe my life's ambition is to receive a letter like this someday.

Janie Kamenar said...

beautiful beautiful polaroids.
love letters.

jesse said...

Maybe my life's ambition is to someday not have to write fiction.

I cheered when I found those polaroids.

Tala Azar said...

somehow, i think her name should be "sophie," not "sophia." i dunno why.
poor thomas street (great name).

jesse said...

I keep wanting to change her name, but I feel like that's against the rules.

I also keep accidentally writing it as Sophie, so I think I will change it if I ever end up doing anything with these.

And somehow I feel worse for Sophia than I do for Thomas. It's a shame to not be in love.

Tala Azar said...

yes, i suppose that is a shame, to not be in love with God, the world, your family, friends, strangers, hats, the sound of a cat scratching a door to be let in...

Tala Azar said...

not that sophie isn't. i was just taking your statement and extending it - or applying it. one or the other.

jesse said...

Understood.

I think Sophia is a girl who likes things to not be difficult.

. said...

i hope you're not angry, but my new post is quite similar to this, but only because i adored yours so much. i've taken to only writing letters recently. consider it a compliment, please.