seattle, seattle

          It was the beginning of February, I was standing beside the snow covered train tracks with nothing behind and everything ahead of me. I have made many things up and I feel it is time I set the record straight. When I talked about Seattle I spoke of a time when both our dreams converged into a single reality. The truth is I never went to Seattle with you. My head privileged a version of events that only served to safeguard my pride. To have experienced without you would be to diminish the very experience itself. I am writing all of this down because it is not often that I am able to articulate honesty, and even rarer when I find the humility to admit it. This is not the first letter that I am writing to you and it will not be the last. Perhaps we will look back at our letters ten, fifteen, fifty years from now and be able to make more sense of it all. I no longer choose to wallow in self pity, half-drowned by grand ambition. I have chosen to face the world, armed only with a pen and journal, diving head first into the heady romance of the unknown. I shall document my failures and my ambitions, my drunken lovers and the drafts of my dreams, I shall write about every city gracious enough to play host. Too young to hold on, too old to break free and run. I have been seduced by the lure of self-fulfillment and the promise of meaning. The magnetic pull of the mystic throbs beneath this veneer of existence, I am sure of it. And like stars scattered across the dark blue sky I intend to burn full of madness and desire. I shall write all of this down and one day I will show you everything. 

canada

I drew a line. I drew a line parallel to yours. I tried to keep my hand steady but every now and then it would shake. I traced the borders on your skin, where the countries separated - what was mine stayed mine and what was yours stayed yours. I drew a map, I drew a map of your face and the streams that ran down it. I looked hard for something I missed, something that I hadn't yet seen.

-

And I traveled, I traveled so far - across different time-zones. I couldn't sleep, there was too much to see, I stayed awake every single night. I traveled, I kept journals and photos - you should have seen me, you would have been so proud. And then it was time to go. I had that map memorized in my head, I knew exactly where it would lead me. I wrote something on the back of the map:

Someday, someday back to you.