iii. after L

dearest L,

i met a girl at school who reminds me of you. she is also blonde and beautiful in a remarkable way, and she clutches her lighter and cigarettes with shaky hands. she is too kind to tell the awkward ones, her own misfit entourage drawn to her like the pied piper, to let her be. her smile is reluctant and bashful like yours and she flushes quickly when drunk. her clothes are edgy and fashionable, while yours were edgy and fierce, in your miniskirts and boots and metal. refusing to wash became part of your charm. what do we make of the hopes of those days, the imperative to do something contrary to culture? have you stood strong, with your bikes and your rats and your music, or, like me, have you begun to give into the ebb and flow? now my only hope is that this too often cruel world is being kind to you. have you been able to stop smoking? are you doing okay without your pills? "it is not we who are crazy, it is the world," you said, and i love you for that. all the same i swallow my pills every day, because stopping was a sojourn into hell, clinging to pain and mistrusting those i love. how does such a little pill make me able to love and survive?

and so it is, and so it is, and so it always thus shall be?

much love,
A

p.s. i haven't taken out my piercing since we got it done in M---. remember that tattoo artist named shyla who ate her own flesh? she found her religion in needles. i can only hope that we all arrive at such strong faith.

p.p.s. please say hello to the other ocean for me.