Desolation Row

My dearest ,

How did I end up here ? so far away from my dreams, so out of touch with my abilities ?

There may be very little use or want for letters when we talk about the general populace, we however are not among them. To me there has and will never be a better way to express my thoughts, emotions, dreams. Similarly the receiving of a letter makes my heart skip a silly little beat; I treasure every word, and take each to be true. I spend my life entangled in some kind of fiction, whether it be my imagination, the pages of a book or between the film strips of an old movie. Regardless of this fact, I find that when I write, no matter how hard I try to create a work of fiction, this is an impossibility. Instead I find some truth, some reality always spilling into it, tainting it perhaps.

As I am writing this, I picture myself at a desk, fingers stained with ink, paper scattered all over, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong record playing in the background. My hair falls in loose curls at my shoulders, lips red, eyelashes tickling my eyebrows, suspenders hugging my thighs and stockings clinging to my moist skin. Skin that tingles at the thought of you at your desk, fingers and face stained with ink, paper lain out neatly in front of you, as you always know just what to say. Your hair is slicked back from perspiration, your one hand leaning against your untamed facial hair; shirt undone, shoes kicked to the side. I lean back in my chair, you lean back in yours, we close our eyes and think of that someone we are longing to see, the subject of my letter, each other.

When I think of your dreams they morph into mine. I dream of walking streets, camera and pen in hand, whether it be the cobblestones of Italy or France, or the soggy grass land of Ireland or Scotland, even the hard, hot cement of India or Asia. I dream, of marvelling in my surroundings each day, of capturing its beauty in a photograph or a piece of writing. I am always in some foreign land, with foreign people I do not understand, but this why I love them and why I hope they love me. I want to be so far away from everything and everyone I know, everyone except you. When I let you into this dream, I sometimes see you walking next to me, in silence, watching me create and in doing so creating as well. I see us laughing and smiling as we try to make sense of the traditions and mannerisms that are so new, so strange, and yet so familiar.