So long and overblown that it has to be posted in two parts...

My dearest and most missed,

I want to begin like it was any other letter. Like what I was saying was just another flirty dance around the truth.

Hi. (I'll start with that). How's the new year going? This business of making new year's resolutions is really quite ludicrous, isn't it? I mean, I woke up on Jan 1 just like any other day. Sun, clouds, wind... all the same. The same people were in my life, the same circumstances. It is a new day nevertheless; another chance to start over or to continue on... just like any other day.

It just so happened that on that day I decided to begin a search. To collect all the things that have helped and pack them in a bag, then head out on the road. You did that a year ago in a literal sense. Mine is metaphorical. My bag is my heart, and the road is my eyes. To begin, I adopted a phrase to help me keep my bearing. There were a good many to choose from, "ad valorem - according to valour, Carpe Diem - seize the day." They were all well and good; even "love thy neighbour" was exceptional. All of these were universal and all-encompassing, but I needed something honed down, something that hit the smallest point. "Ars est celare artem- art for the sake of art." That is my road sign, my map...and should I fail...my epitaph.

Ha, ha, ignore that bullshit. I wrote it one year ago when things were different. Things change and all that garbage. I never sent it, don't know why. I sent a whole lot of other shit so I guess I could have sent that too. Thought up some junk and stuck it in an envelope marked "Return to Sender" and be done with it. Because, after all, that's what they were. Like a message in a bottle. Sitting on a tropical beach, writing about the sun and the wind and the sea. Write about loneliness and despair and won't someone please rescue me. Page upon page, stick it in a bottle and throw it into the ocean with a prayer and a hope and a wave goodbye. Off that bottle floats, bobbing and weaving, riding the waves and ending up on a distant shore. Maybe some little girl will find that scum encrusted bottle and open it, read it and run off to warn the authorities. Get a boat out to me and we'll marry in a beautiful ceremony. Ha, only in movies!!! That bottle would get eaten by a fish ten minutes after being sent out. Or to be even more perfect, make it all the way across the ocean and break on a rock at that last port. That's reality in all its arcane beauty.

You know what I think might be interesting? If I sent you all these letters and you just looked at the closed envelope and then threw them out. That would be marvellous! Could you be that in tune with Buddhist patience and wisdom? Maybe there was a cheque for a thousand dollars inside, maybe a photograph of a boy in tears, maybe a letter full of stupid words. Who knows? Who cares? Throw it out, burn it in a ceremonial pyre. Without ever knowing and yet knowing that none of it matters. That it never did. Do you know what I'm saying? I sure hope not, because then I would just want to run away and die. Curl up in a little ball and go insane.

Do you remember how I used to have those dreams about you when I first met you? Oh shit, I suppose I should ask if you remember me first? How lame is that? Never mind, back to the other question. Do you remember those dreams? Upsetting, isn't it? You're at the mercy of those who dream and think about you. Out there, in the world, someone is thinking some kind of thoughts, and they are manipulating and sculpting and molding you. The nerve, the gall of those bastards who should just think about what they can't hurt. Anyway, I still have dreams about you from time to time. Dreams about packed suitcases and condescending smiles. I can't control those fucking dreams otherwise I would make the world perfect in my sleep. I dream about things that make me sad when I wake up. I have happy dreams about things so out of reach that I must smile as I dream them. Then the nightmare begins when I wake up and the dreams aren't true. Better to live in a surreal world, with pink fluffy clouds and shit like that. Instead, it's all colossal penises and mountain size breasts and sex the size of nature herself. A great big stupid mating scene where naked newborns suckle at a great big alcohol filled tit. Ugh, fuck, fuck, fuck! Sometimes I hate words because they won't sing the song I want them to. Other times I love words because they not only sing, but dance and tell stories and it's all so beautiful because it's clear and melodious. Just before I dream, I hear a voice saying my name like that person is standing beside my bed. It used to be a scary thing but now, like with all upsetting things, you get used to it and you accept it. It's that little dance before rapid eye movement. And those dreams and those words laugh at me because I thought I could control them. Even just a little bit of control as my hand is wrapped around a pen like I've got the world by the balls. Dreams and more dreams and hopes and screams and little tailor-made seams.

Voices and names from the past and like I said a year ago, it isn't real. It's only a meaningless chemical reaction in my head. Little neurons and endorphins dancing, making me happy, sad, whatever. Memories are the stuff of songs and I'm singing that awful memories song now. Those unreal chemical reactions erasing a life, a person, you. To me, you, and to you, me. Just the past, and not much of the past either. A whole lifetime to choose from and sometimes we end up at a few weeks that happened in neverland, trying to make it stay real. Stretch those commercials into a whole movie. Funny ha ha and funny odd. I still have that poster up in my room and I look at it, thinking about the image behind it. The reason why I tore it off one wall and put it up on another. Silly, silly. I look at it and shudder because it's a two-dimensional joke and I'm the one-dimensional punchline. Funny ha ha and funny odd. Smoke a cigarette and be the smoke. Drift away in acrid glory, make it past the holes in the wall and the cracks in the window. Make it to the outside world where the wind can blow it all away.

I have a daydream that I play over and over like a scratched-up album. I lay my head down on your lap and you put your hand on my head, and you whisper something. I try to invent what you whisper but when I put it to words it's something mean or cruel, and I have to lift my head and get to my feet. I have to shuffle off and lay my head down on my own pillow. Sometimes or all the time, I can't remember which, I think about selfish things like kissing you and watching you while you sew or draw or drink a cup of tea. Then I come up with a line, a sentence that I think you would like but no matter what I say you look at me like I'm a fool. You shake your head and tell me that I'm wrong, and that every time I speak, I get uglier. Then I want to tell you that it was a lie anyway. I don't really feel that way, I didn't really mean that, I really can hug and kiss and be everything. But then I would be nothing but a liar. You would know it and then it would be over. Then I couldn't even daydream anymore. I wouldn't be allowed to even think such things. You would stand on a high cliff and shake your head, waggle your finger at me and tell me to stop. As if my tears would make a difference. I'd cry and cry and tap water would run down my cheeks.

But here I'm safe and it's liberating to write you because you'll never read it. You'll never know what a loser I am and even if you do, I'll never know. It would be ruined if I did because then I couldn't lie to myself anymore. There's an angel over the town and an eye that never blinks. There's a piece of paper turning yellow with age and a mind that can't make pictures anymore. Slowly I become a bug, with wiggling antennae and big ugly eyes staring into a mirror. My bug mouth smiles because my bug mind sees a man. Foolish little bug. The jokes on the bug.

I can be a bug and a spoiled child and yell at the walls, nobody understands me! I can throw a tantrum for a night and a day and then the next hour I'll smile my enigmatic smile because it's good that no one understands. I know, I know, I know but nobody else does and that means...something. I hope. If it doesn't then all it comes down to is a perfumed wind blowing across a useless sea.

On this shore I think about your hands. I remember they were these slender piano playing hands that could make a bridge for the cripples to cross the water. I think about your hair and your eyes and your nose and your lips. Cruel time has blurred you in my mind's eye but what I think about the most remains as solid and clear as yesterday's tears. I think of your soul and long to make up some small part of it.