To whom it may concern.
I wanted to do this yesterday. You know I’ve been meaning to write you, the intention is always there. I’ve just been so tired. Exhausted, to tell the truth. My head’s empty, but I’m full of excuses. Every morning I get my head up and follow blindly. I wish I was free, but I’m not. I’m in a bind, still bound.
First cigarette makes me feel worse. I can’t finish it, I leave half.
I guess nobody’s free, not really. I guess it doesn’t really mean anything. Left to my own devices I kind of just fucking whatever.
I’m sitting here thinking about a thing you never told me. I’d like to take a moment to respond to that, not like a schizo, rather scherzo, humour me. You know, I’m just like you, between us just the glass thickness. I know you know what I mean, or if not then not. I was thinking maybe I like that too. Maybe that’s part of it. I don’t worry about it though, and I don’t take it back either. Something foreign will always fascinate, maybe leave it that way, I’ll leave it with you for now.
Second one predictably going down a little easier, but I shouldn’t finish it I suppose.
It’s like I stepped out of a dream. I want to go back, but I know I won’t get anything out of it. I don’t need to be lying down to believe what I want. No cousin of mine, I’d rather have it standing up. Closed the door on my way out, there are too many things to catch up on. What goes down must come up, what goes in must come out.
Committing to writing I’m still smoking cigarettes makes me want to give it up again. I don’t like what I see through the peephole. I want it one way, but it is another. It’s sticky work, cutting cords. It doesn’t matter. It’s not that I never regret things, it’s that I know it’s better not to. I know better. I can’t ever be satisfied, one way or another.
In the dark I close my eyes, in need of something sweet. One hand in front of my eyes, the other in the jar. I can’t commit to any one thing just yet, but I’m working on it.
Charmed, I’m sure, but don’t mind me, surely the third will be the one. It always takes a few tries to get things right, doesn’t it?
Not sure what I’m looking for, but I’ll know when I find. I saw something through the door before it closed, from the corner of my eye. Still putting the puzzle together, but I have to admit I was never any good at those. I don’t really care to solve something simply for the sake of it. I don’t care to know everything there is. I’m easy on myself. I’m a bit lazy, I’m easy, easily distracted. I just stand there, mouth ajar, eyes blank, door swinging past me, falling into the latch. My thoughts trail off, the clock ticks faster, my mind’s somewhere else. I’ll get to it. Yeah, I’ll get to it, don’t worry. I don’t. Maybe I won’t, and that’s okay too, I think.
Third, I'm off. I wasn’t perfect today.
I hear noises in my stairwell and listen through the keyhole. Has me thinking I don’t listen enough, in one ear. It’s like I say, it has to come out. I think a lot but I don’t think I think so well. Maybe just the wrong way ’round. Scared of the drop, so I start from the bottom. I don’t report, but foretell and fight ghosts. I fear the emergence more than the culmination, the journey more than the destination. I dread what’s on the horizon, can’t quite make it out, out of reach, out of my hands. So I fold over and lunge at it from across the table, I fold over, eyes closed and breath held, nab it before either of us can recoil. Work my way back, light one end, the other in my mouth, and after all is said I leave it in the middle. At the end of the day all I ever do is make ends meet.
I stopped counting. I’ve lost count.
Well well well, if it isn’t… Wait, where was I? I heard some knocking. The thought of feigning I’m away always passes through my mind, it’s conditioned. But of course it is rarely called for anymore. I’m grateful, I’m grateful for a lot, let it be known. These days it’s always like that. And all it takes is an open door. I’m a bad liar anyway, I forget, and all that anxiety, for what? I don’t think things through much for the most part, things just fall into place. I’m fate’s little prince, I can do no wrong. God's favourite, I'm like Johnny. Or perhaps it’s in the eye. It’s in mine anyway, the glimmer of the world. These days I do have the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, but I was born with the heart of a coward, so I’m still working on the other half. It’ll come to me.
All right, that’s the truth.
Yours.