postcard, reverse

Dear Sophia,

   The tower you see in the picture is like a god. He stands over all of us, and we lead our little lives in his shadow. I hope I don't have to stay here long. I think about the tower falling and destroying those who keep its ground, and then I wake up shivering and crying.
   But you don't want to hear about my puerile tremors. I have much more to tell you. More important things to draw in inklines.
   I always expect to see you around every corner, in the coffeeshops and bookstores, like our younger days. Before I became an idealist. I know you're an ocean and a half away, but it's just water. We're made of oceans. Aren't we?
   I sound like I doubt myself. Sounds are true. I doubt myself so much these days, days no different from the rest of my life. I'm traveling, I'm crying, I'm writing, just as always. Even when I couldn't travel, I'd do so when no one was looking. I'd fly away on magic carpets woven in a neuron mesh and feel the wind of my throat whip past my ears.
   I don't know where I'm going, I don't even think I know why I'm going. It's very much like a vacation. You sleep in late just to feel like you can. I have to know that I can still move my joints, that I'm not just a tinman too tired.
   Lately I can only read about the murderers, the incurably criminal, and the depraved. I hope literature isn't a mirror. I hope it's more of a magnifying glass.
   Who says literature is made of light? Lighterature.
   I hope to dream of you soon.

Thomas "Ever-Since" Street