You know me.

I’m the one with a collection of mismatched suitcases and a collection of keys belonging to nothing I own. I’ve given away or lost so many things yet I still feel restless, as if there’s something I forgot to take leave of along the way — something that might be taken away by force or surprise. It’s a fear of mine. I assuage it by living close to the bones, nearer to starkness than satiety, yet there are times I’m still overwhelmed, even frightened, by how much I appreciate certain comforts: A hot bath, a warm towel, a soft bed, freshly laundered clothes, a sunny day, a hand that entwines with mine even if fleeting.

Everything goes away, eventually.  The only sturdy bricks in the foundation of any life are imaginary. The earth teeters and quakes, and shifting winds drive people in and out of hollow doors. Tomorrow may not be like any day we’ve ever known. It can bring tragedy or relief, laughter or pain, and there’s no way to accurately guess what might be on the horizon or in somebody else’s heart.

So I take the hot bath and grab the warm towel while they exist, while I can, and I’m filled with immense gratitude for the clean robe that hangs on the hook, even if the night is cold and my hands are empty.

Simple things are often the hardest to come by. I take nothing for granted except the transient nature of people, places, and things.

Prescience is a fool’s game, yet I keep one ear pinned to the earth, always, while the other stays aboveground. I feel a need to know what might come up from the surface as well as what might come crashing down.

Feel it, feel it, feel it. Close to the bones of the inner ear, vibrating down into the sternum, spreading across the ribs like a breath or a warning, it is the cadence of life on the farthest edge, with all of its unexpected twists and dull-eyed revelations. It’s the sparks that flare and burn, the silent revolutions, the wild heart, and the roar of every hope that’s ever been set free. It’s the seeds planted in the imagination, overgrown and uncultivated, left begging for the order of a tangible garden.

You know me.

I need a wide horizon and an endless day of sun. I need to hold a starfish in my hand and paint a mountain over my eyes. I need dirt and pine needles under my feet, and sagebrush that ambles across a barren desert, or cornflowers and daffodils that bloom in untouched valleys.

Nature never leaves. It cannot be lost or given away, and even its unpredictability comes as no surprise. It knows no malice or hunger. It doesn’t dream or love or hate or wish for better than what it has known. It wastes no time on tears, questions, ambitions, or fears. It simply exists, needing and wanting nothing more than it can provide itself.

Nature steadies the uneven plane of humanness.

I need a haircut, a rock, a bright day, and someone who knows me.

You do, don’t you?

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On a narrow bed, she would awaken paralyzed, lying on her stomach with her arms wedged beneath her. The coiled snake would be on her pillow, inches from her face, its eyes staring into her own. She knew she could not move then, even to blink, and that she had to take the shallowest of breaths. The snake always came in the dark, and didn’t usually leave until the first morning light flickered behind the pink bedroom curtains.

Her paralysis would go away slowly, beginning with a tingle in her numbed arms. She would be careful when shifting positions, not fully trusting that the snake wasn’t just hiding somewhere, like under the covers or under the bed. She’d roll over slowly, lifting the sheets and blankets and peeking underneath. If she found nothing there, she would hold her breath and, as silently as she could, bend herself into a frog position at the end of the bed. When she could no longer keep herself from inhaling, she would screw up her courage and jump as far away from the bed as she could. On hands and knees, she would crawl around her bedroom, looking under the bed and dresser, inside of shoes and toy boxes, to make sure the snake was really gone. When she was sure it was, she would she get back into bed, rolling the blankets around herself like a cocoon. Wound tightly, with blankets covering her face, her suspended heart would begin beating frantically and loudly, like popcorn in a hot pan.

It was so many years ago, but today Hester Price sits on a straight-backed chair in a darkened corner of her small apartment, waiting for something to go away.

The busybody neighbor stands chattering outside as usual, with a cigarette dangling from her whiskey-soaked mouth, and her ancient red poodle panting at the end of a green leash. Her drunken voice carries over the metallic screech of lawn mowers and hedge trimmers. Even with the windows closed and blinds drawn, Hester learns that the hostile man in #12 — the one who leaves angry ALL-CAPS notes in the laundry room admonishing others for their failings — is still videotaping neighbors from his upstairs window, hoping to catch the perpetrators of unleashed dogs, crooked parking, and overfull lint traps. He has made it his mission to track down the rule breakers so that they can be punished and held to account.

It’s Thursday and soon the garbage truck will come, with its gurgling diesel engine and steady stream of warning beeps. The left side of Hester’s apartment will shake as the communal dumpster is picked up with metal claws and slammed back down to the asphalt.

As she does every week, Hester considers how much she has to throw away or give away. She thinks about going through cupboards and closets and boxes, but the task seems daunting. Nothing is rooted; everything is impermanent and scattered, like a ten thousand piece puzzle with no design.

Besides that, there is the whole matter of going outside, where there are snakes with cameras lying in wait; snakes with sweat-stained shirts and in crisp black uniforms; snakes that hate without reason and strike without cause. There are pits and pits and pits, and no way to avoid them.

The pits were always there, of course, but The Stalker took them out of the darkness. He shined a malicious light inside and forced Hester to look until she understood that all the excuses she ever made, and all the hopes she once had of escaping, were futile.

The Stalker was an ignorant man, a miserable, squat figure with a lisp and a hairy neck, who read Soldier of Fortune magazines on his lunch break and hawked conspiracy theories to whomever would listen. He insisted that his wife home school their children so that they would learn The Real Truth, like how the federal income tax is illegal, and the CIA killed Elvis. For two years, Hester deftly avoided engaging in small talk with The Stalker – it wasn’t hard since the phones were always ringing in the customer service department – but then one day he came to work particularly excited about locking his eight year-old daughter in her bedroom all weekend for returning ten minutes late from a Girl Scout meeting.

The world, The Stalker bragged, would be a much better place if all parents were as strong and intent on teaching their children responsibility as he was. His daughter needed to know that 5:00 meant 5:00 and not 5:10. Ten minutes spent dawdling on a sidewalk could lead to bad influences; drugs, boys, pregnancy. He wasn’t raising a slut.

“That’s insane,” Hester said. “I can’t believe anyone would do that to a child. I feel sorry for your daughter.”

The Stalker’s response was vicious and immediate. He screamed so forcefully that he drooled. Spittle ran down his chin and onto his blue t-shirt as he ranted about the Bible – spare the rod and spoil the child – and who the fuck did Hester think she was to judge him – and this is probably why she’s single – because she has no values and hates men.

After a two-day suspension for his outburst, The Stalker returned to the work floor, quiet but seething. He took to staring at Hester with such hostile eyes that she wondered if her call to Children’s Protective Services resulted in a visit. She complained to management, but was told that as long as The Stalker was doing his job, there was no rule against staring at someone, even if they did it aggressively and for long minutes on end.

The Stalker grew bolder, and began showing up to work early. Every day, Hester found something new missing from her desk – a stapler, a pair of scissors, a roll of tape, a tube of lotion, a paperback book – but no one ever saw The Stalker take the items. “You can’t accuse someone without proof,” Hester’s manager said. “If it’s that much of a concern to you, don’t keep anything personal in your desk.”

Hester found her car tires flat after work twice, and her sideview mirror torn off once. Lunches that she left in the cafeteria refrigerator were found in the trash. Her home mailbox was suddenly flooded with religious tracts and pornography. “You need to calm down,” said the manager. “At this point, it’s he-said, she-said, and I’m not going to take sides in what appears to be a personality conflict.”

It was the janitor who caught The Stalker pouring urine from a bottle on Hester’s phone and chair. The Stalker was fired then, and Hester went to court to get a restraining order.

“This is all a lie,” The Stalker screamed at the judge. “She’s an atheist who hates Christians! She’s a lesbian who hates men!”

The judge granted the order, but the piece of paper didn’t help her sleep at night. The coiled snake returned, but this time it never really went away. It hissed behind her shoulder even when she was awake, bringing with it every memory Hester had tried to shed from her past.

It doesn’t hurt that much. Don’t be a baby.
I’ll kill your sisters if you tell.
I’ll destroy you, I’ll ruin you, I’ll make you pay.
You’re in trouble.
You never know where I’ll be.
I’ll always be able to find you.
You can’t escape.

You’re in trouble, you’re in trouble, you’re in trouble.

Hester sits with her knees drawn to her chest. The neighbor gossips, the garbage truck beeps, a dog barks, and nothing feels safe. Hester’s thoughts stutter and tremble. She feels the cruel futility of sand ladders and muddy ropes – of climbing and falling a thousand times only to be back in the same place. She’s exhausted. She’s ready.

She leans her head back and offers her neck.

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Dear Vincent,

I left off wanting to be the girl under the tree, with wild hair and apricots falling around my feet, the one who scrawls words dangerously, with no consideration of time or consequence.   I also shared my fear of being forever, instead, the draftsgirl.  Carefully engineered, a single life drafted, one side, straight lines, four squares per inch. . .

Lately, something has been changing in this landscape, Vincent.  I can feel it.  Something is twisting in or out,  tectonic plates are shifting, and things are being arranged and rearranged in subtle, precarious ways.  The tycoons, politicians, and bankers are everywhere, moving like specters through the fog.

I am scared, Vincent.  The ground beneath my feet has become shaky.  Things are falling and colliding and sliding away. Fires are being extinguished, leaving a chilling void.  All around me are eyes, bereft and empty, accusing and congratulatory, desperate and frightening.  There are hands in pockets, hands engaged in work, and so many fingers pointing. . . there’s a deficit of warmth and a surfeit of greed.

In this new landscape, draftsgirls like me count their pennies and desperately cling to faith.  Our voices lilt upwards in apologies, begging forgiveness for the slightest mis-mark; the most inconsequential step out of line.  We no longer see Arles or fields of flowers in our dreams, but debtor’s prisons, and ourselves as the potato eaters who must survive yet another harsh season.

Once, Vincent, I lost myself in your novel reader.  I saw her, wrapped in a warm shawl, surrounded by amber light, left wide-eyed by some adventure, or captivated by some turn of phrase that her mind might repeat over and over again to spark her imagination or salve her heart.  I imagine she might have followed Thoreau as he left  the ship’s cabin to stand “before the mast and deck of the world” where he could “best see the moonlight amid the mountains”.   Or Dante –  “Consider your origins; you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

In a warm room, with other appetites sated, transcendence comes easily.  Ragged men in ragged clothes become poetic symbols; weathered faces lined in pain become lyrical epithets.  In a virtuous existence, where there is no desperate struggle to make what is essential matter less – where there is no forceful tamping down of hunger, or violent scramble for the last piece of this or bit of that – where there is warmth, and light, and plenty – it is easy to transcend the faraway, brute reality of cold bones and empty bellies.

I used to close my eyes against the grimness of your Potato Eaters. The hope-filled and dreamy child in me found it a particularly ugly piece.  I hated that it was there, amidst the achingly beautiful starry nights, and the gardens of Arles.  I shuddered against the humble faces in gray surroundings, with their slumped shoulders and distant eyes, and I believe I might have even said aloud, not me, not me, never.  What arrogance I had then, Vincent, in my cast-off clothes, with my sun-burned face and impertinent temper.  I believed that boldness, above all else would see me through – that courage was the great equalizer that would bring me out of the muddy fields and into the sunlit gardens.  And at night, under bright yellow stars and the bluest of  skies, I would sit under the awning of the café terrace, my heart filled with the grace of distance, writing the stories I promised to never forget.

I can’t say exactly when it was that I looked at the Potato Eaters and found myself there, or when the Café Terrace at Night became the more painful vision, but it was recent.  One day, I simply emptied my pockets of impossible dreams, and found myself face to face with the woman pouring coffee.  And she was no longer entirely un-beautiful to me, but worthy.  I wanted to wrap her in a warm shawl and give her a feather bed in which to rest her weary head.  I wanted to wake her with roses and music and fill her long, bent days in the fields with hope.  I felt the languishing pain, too, of having none of these gifts to give.

Poverty and politics are maliciously entwined, Vincent.  Those closest to the earth feel it first – the swelling winds and jagged cracks – the subtle, perilous changes in landscape.  We feel it, and we fear the long drought ahead.

I hear them calling out to us, Vincent, like barkers in some nightmarish carnival –  Get your hope here!  Don’t panic!   All is well, or will be well! – and I think of something else Dante said, about the darkest places in hell being reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of crisis.  Certainly, there’s hell enough right here on earth to hold the corrupt, yet they are rarely the ones who suffer the darkest of days.  It’s wealth and power, Vincent, and not courage that takes one deep into the sanctified gardens.  There, behind the guarded gates, beyond the reach of justice,  the violators transcend the broken bodies, empty wallets, and torn spirits they’ve left behind, writing their own histories or forgetting them altogether.

I have a sudden urge to go home, my friend, but where?  There is no place I can truly call my own.  I am living on borrowed time, in rented spaces.   I cast a glance upward and see only the reflections of a bitterly divided earth.   A silver thorn on a bloody rose, and an earth that’s trembling.

What I wouldn’t give now to be a shepherdess instead of a draftsgirl, on another landscape altogether.

I wish you were here to paint me something beautiful.

Love, Always,

Jane

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In ancient Italy, extracts of belladonna were used by women in the form of cosmetic eye drops, which dilated their pupils and gave their eyes a bright, glistening appearance. Large pupils were thought to be a sign of feminine beauty, hence the name Belladonna for “beautiful woman.”

They are always beautiful, the Belladonna women, if not in the classical sense, then in some unusual and overstated way. Like an electric light show in a darkened theater, a Belladonna woman charges the atmosphere around her, flashing her eccentric style and rare form to the amazement of a populace unwittingly numbed by everyday plainness. Visually stimulating, the Belladonna woman is also magnetic, capable of drawing an individual of interest or even a large crowd around them with barely any effort at all.

Incapable of mediocrity in appearance or attitude, even on those rare occasions when they try to blend in, a Belladonna woman rarely escapes notice –- or the judgment of others. While most will find her colorful demeanor intriguing, some will feel a need to shut her down –- to gray wash her with some sort of damnation. They will decry the falseness of her palette, the way she pridefully carries her individuality, and they will reject her for her vanity.

In response, the Belladonna woman will brighten her colors, stand taller, and narrow her beautiful eyes. Unlike the male Narcissus, she will avoid the sword of judgment. She sees her own beauty not as a source of shame or folly, but of personal power, a feeling which she nurtures as a source of strength and confidence. Shunning didactic mythology, the Belladonna woman refuses to be the moral to anyone’s story, including her own. Morals are for the rugged, the religious, or the simple. Instead, the Belladonna woman will have her own set of  scruples, which she may reorder from time to time according to her ethics at the moment, but they will always be strongly held and forcefully applied.

Yet, for all of her seeming strength and confidence, a Belladonna woman is easily hurt. Whether her vulnerability comes from a place of ego or heart is often debated, even by those who know her best. They wonder about the duality of her occasionally fragile spirit and her unbreakable pride. They may wonder for a lifetime, because the Belladonna woman always leaves mystery – and so many other things – in her wake.

All parts of the true belladonna are narcotic.

Like a siren’s call, the Belladonna woman is hard to resist. She has a lyrical quality about her, a deep vein of emotion and truthfulness that rises above the daily din. The emotions will be her own, as will the truths –- and either may be shaded by incongruent hues –- but the way she sings them will make true believers even out of jaded skeptics.

Many are content to sway to her song from a distance, whereas other will feel a need to serve her in some capacity. The Belladonna woman, however, will reject most people who seek her out. She is selective, and her choices are predicated upon her needs or desires at any given time.

The call of a Belladonna woman who accepts someone into her inner circle is not the call of a mere friend or lover, but of a female monarch. To enter her court, whether it’s a rundown apartment in the city, or a gleaming skyscraper, one must have something of value and worthy of royalty’s favor. Once they are in, she may not ask them for their biggest gifts, but she will expect them as her due. Putting the Belladonna woman in the position of having to ask for anything will set off a surge of distrust and unease in her, since she feels that those who love her should anticipate her needs and understand her desires. If they do not, and fail to learn quickly enough, the Belladonna’s song will turn into a metaphorical call of “off, off with their heads.” To fail her is to show incompetence, and she will not suffer the blunders of others for long. She is a woman whose sense of self is very much reflected in her environment. She cannot feel as confident and secure when those who serve her, her rooks and knights and pawns, are clumsy and inadequate.

It would be easy to call her a bitch, but it wouldn’t be wholly accurate. While the Belladonna is a queen among women, and an often unpredictable and demanding one at that, she has a glowing vibrancy about her that’s both fascinating and contagious. The Belladonna woman is drama, comedy, excitement, and adventure. To be with her is to look at life through many colored lenses. Every day, and sometimes several times a day, the spectrum changes, and it is always lively, and always animated.

Belladonna was an important ingredient in Witches brew during the Middle ages, often being equated with female sexuality.

The narcotic nature of the Belladonna woman’s appeal can offer solace as well as seduction –- a feeling of flying, or at least of being light years beyond a dull existence. She will take her lovers to places few others will ever experience, and teach them how to soar their spirits farther, higher, faster. Her sensitivities will move her lovers, as well as her friends, in a profound way. Both will feel instinctually protective of the Belladonna woman, even during her most steely phases, suspecting that her stubborn shows of strength are, at least in part, a cover for deeper wounds.

Lovers feel heightened just by being in the Belladonna woman’s presence. Sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and textures all seem sharper, richer, deeper, and somehow more real than they’ve ever felt before. While in her court, lovers feel compelled to stand taller and be more heroic than they ever have before –- to immerse themselves in a shared life that is fully thriving and saturated with desire.

It is the constant challenge of being in the Belladonna woman’s good graces that lends fire to the flames of her would-be heroes. Even small tokens of appreciation from her act as a catapult, launching lovers into a quest to find more, do more, love more, and be more. It is this never-ending quest of “more” that leaves one reeling with happiness over every success, and newly motivated by every failure. When love is present, and the Belladonna woman is in full bloom, the quest is more invigorating than exhausting.

It is when she wilts and turns away that the trip, once so beautiful and enlivening, turns bad.

Belladonna was used during the middle ages to gain confessions. This psychochemical torture would confuse and weaken victims, making them unsure of what was fantasy or reality, what they had done, or had merely imagined.

The sudden absence of her brightness leaves a void, and with a Belladonna woman, it is almost always sudden. It may be as simple as boredom for her, or a chill she suddenly developed when a particular lover’s gift, or even a friend’s, failed to please her. It may be that a quirk, a whim, or a new pair of eyes seen from across a crowded room piqued her interest, and curiosity in a Belladonna woman rarely goes unsated. She is a woman who acts upon her feelings, swiftly and confidently, and she is unlikely to consider any explanation necessary.

Left in the darkness, alone with a love that is not returned, those who have been up-ended by a Belladonna woman are wracked with grief and unanswered questions. Initially, they will torture themselves over what they might have done or failed to do, but soon they will question their own part in the Belladonna play, ruminating over the gifts they gave so freely, and the sacrifices they made without hesitation, so that they could stand in a ray of light that was not their own, and that never could be.

It can takes months or even years, but eventually the blackness turns to a familiar shade of gray. Numbness sets in, and its blank palette is felt as a relief. Life moves forward, at escalator pace, on some auto-pilot never noticed before. In time, feelings start to return, but they are guarded and framed in question marks. Still, even in the painful aftermath, the purples of African violets and the oranges and reds of sunsets stand out, as do the feathers, the bricks, the cracks in the sidewalks. . .the lilt of a piano, or the strum of a guitar. . . . the quickening of a pulse, the warmth of skin upon skin, the chill of morning, and the heat of fire.

Nothing after a Belladonna woman is the same as before. Even loneliness is more acute, and longing more intense.

And one day, you will see another Belladonna, beautiful and colorful, and charged with something rare and electric. Your eyes will meet hers as she is sizing you up. Instinctively, you will straighten your shoulders, stand a little taller, and the hero that resides in your heart will start pounding. . . .

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Every night for several years, you’ve hopped onto a trampoline. You’ve jumped and jumped until your heart raced, your body felt weak, and you were exhausted. It’s this ritual, you believe, that allows you to sleep, and you have slept so brilliantly during these years that closing your eyes has become, in itself, a thing of beauty. You feel healed by sleep, both released and energized by the time morning comes.

Now, though, you’ve developed small fractures in both feet. Your knees are unsteady. Your legs shake in waking hours, as overly strained muscles begin to separate from bone. Still you jump, only more slowly, and more aware of the damage being done. You begin to question your methods, and momentarily consider other alternatives, but nothing feels as perfect or reliable as the thing you are most familiar with. Ultimately, you jump so that you can get there – to the place you love – the place that makes you feel wholly alive and beautifully human.

One evening, your trampoline disappears. It is gone, and you cannot afford to replace it. Your body, despite its accumulation of damages, aches for nothing more than the nightly ritual of jump-bounce-twist-turn. Your legs feel as if they’ve taken on a restless, unhappy life of their own. They moan and twitch and rebel beneath you. Your heart, used to taking a nightly pounding, feels eerily still.

You do not sleep.
You begin to dream of horrible things while you are painfully awake.
Your body, you feel, has betrayed you.
You fear you will never sleep again.

You pace the floors, and so much comes to the surface in the dark of night. Bitterness, sadness, fear, anger, apathy. Your mind, overly-full and anxious, turns dark and despairing. In losing the trampoline, everything else you once loved also feels lost to you. You begin to associate your jumping with all the wonderful things you fear are lost forever, creating a black and white list of reasons you must, absolutely must, have your trampoline back. Without it;

you will never sleep again.
You will never again feel right, or whole, or rested.
Unrested, you will never be happy.
Unhappy, there is no reason to live.

The thought of getting back on your trampoline begins to consume you. It’s only the thought of jumping again that brings you close to feeling any sort of happiness. Small fractures and torn ligaments become, in your mind, a smaller and smaller price to pay, and even somewhat meaningless in your list of self-justified consequences.

You need the trampoline.
Your body demands it.
You, or some very important, alive, or sacred part of you, will die without it.
You’re are in more pain when you don’t jump than when you do.

The trampoline becomes everything, and until you have it again, little else seems to matter. You need to tie off the vein, light the pipe, snort the coke, take another pill, binge until you puke, starve yourself into a silhouette, gamble until it’s all gone, sleep with another stranger, drink yourself into oblivion — because nothing else, you are convinced — will ever make you feel as good or as much like your truest self.

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All that pent-up passion, where does it go? It travels in endless loops and spirals like a lost and wild thing that can’t find its natural environment. It cries out in unremembered dreams, and wakes in the morning to buttons and buzzers, fluorescent lights, and just enough sun to keep it thirsty and pulsing.

March on, soldier girl, march on. There are some mercies you will never know, and others you are probably better off not knowing. Carry your arsenal of words proudly, and spray paint the obstacles and alleyways in your path. Write your name boldly, and let your vivid colors splash against the graying admonishments and swells of whitewash.

Once, I wrote you a story by hand, in plum colored ink, in a beautiful leather notebook. I did not hover over lines or pause between paragraphs, and I did not sleep for three days. It seemed urgent then, but somehow all those flowing words got lost. Stolen or lost – or maybe never found – does it really make a difference? There was no one there to protect anything, and it was easy, so easy, to pretend I didn’t care. I bought three piece suits from the secondhand store, read books that taught me how to aspire and conform, and forged my way into some musty tapestry held together by false needs and even falser promises.

I faltered then, I know. I was young, and bumbling, and out-and-outside of everything, scrambling desperately just to understand the essential facts, such as the chasm between how people acted, and how they really were in their own private and natural worlds, where no acting is required. I struggled to slow down the alternative other-scripts in my head, where I could create and arrange, rewrite and edit, until every new imprint and revelation made sense. It was not easy to evict myself from that sanctuary, but I did. I took a deep breath, and plowed my whole self into dangerous, unknown territory, as determined as any pioneer looking for a title and forty acres.

I did not have the means then to promise you what I am promising you now.

I want you to do whatever it is you really want to do, love, with any sort of abandon. Stay out and outside, if that is your wish, and I will protect whatever messages you leave in your path. I will let no one pour a whitewash over your words, and in this, I will not fail you. I will be the Theo to your Vincent – the unflagging patience to your spitfire impulsiveness, the protector of your interior art, and the keeper of your secrets. I will secure the essentials, keep the destroyers at bay, shore you up, and pick you up in ways that will be unintrusive and unnoticeable.

I will do it for your art, because it’s not always beautiful. Because it’s often curious, gritty, unrefined, full of question marks, and unmistakably yours.

I will do it for your hands. The ones that still plead when you talk, like a last vestige of childhood, a desire for your soul to be understood, even when your words are wrapped in the esoterica of language.

I will do it for your mind. The one that has been spent in fractions and unjustly divided in a world where half or less of a human being is thought to make a whole.

I have loved you from the day you recognized your separateness. When you gazed at your hands and feet and happily realized they belonged to you alone. When you lolled on the shag carpet of your pink bedroom, dreaming of horses, oceans, and Amazons. When you rebelled against the teachings of a monotonous life punctuated by fistfuls of anger.

I loved you when you were a hero, experimenting with the world, filled with unbridled energy and a desire to do and gather all that was good. I loved you when you were on your knees in the river, begging for your life, praying to whatever god watches over the set-apart and abandoned, and when you felt vindictive, angry, and bitter, knowing that no such god existed, and that you were truly on your own. When you numbered your scars, 1-17, and gave them names. Snake in the Grass. Saint Albert’s Fence. Five Minutes Late. Two Against One.

I know how love begins. It begins alone, in the sacred flesh of a new soul, as an intuitive desire or a biological imperative. It rises up to fill in the barren spaces, smooth the jagged edges of scar tissue, and nurture the mind, body, and spirit. It becomes intrinsic, outreaching, sacred – birthed over and over again in neophyte stages until it becomes agape and all-encompassing.

I do not know, and have never known, how love really ever ends.

All those years when passion was kept in tight coils and stored away for some future days of freedom, had this effect; my love is a renewing thing that knows no end. It is not fickle, or conditional, or wary. Once given, it is given forever, no matter how great the distance, how few the words, or how lost the original reason. For this love, and out of love for you, I will stand my ground, as close or as far away as desired, and guard the gates.

The world that made it impossible for us to be one, to be both artist and worker, dreamer and survivor, existing in the same physical being and outward expression, is no stronger than the shoulders that carry it as a necessary burden. I have grown strong enough to carry that burden for the both of us, and brave enough to face the consequences. So be, my love, that girl under the tree who paints poetry and writes abstracts. Be wild, and unrelenting, and undaunted. Burst your spindly roots out of the ragtag world, and leave the broken branches and dry leaves behind. Abandon the dogtag chains, the crumbling mortar, and the numbers that would subtract art from your every equation.

I will be here, holding steady the balance pole, guarding the gate, and gathering all the good that falls.

From me to you, for us, this is my promise.

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