500 Words 06 08 09

Hello,
I am writing to inform you that I, unfortunately, am fit for this world. If it could be possible to retract my previous statement, I would do so gladly, but regretfully there are some things that, once said, one is unable to take back. Suffice it to say that this is where I am, not necessarily where I should be, but if I AM at all, I am here, which is therefore where I belong. The location is at once completely relevant and entirely irrelevant - you see, I am not home, and I can not find one. It is true, however, that home is a place within one's self, and though I cannot locate it, I contain it and therefore am responsible for it, whether it is accessible or not.

Please accept my sincerest apologies for my absence, although I am unable to tell you when it will be possible for me to return. When it does happen, it will happen organically, that is to say I may not realize when I have arrived and it will take a natural period of reflection to surface before I will be able to notify you of my whereabouts.

Allow me to illustrate my point: my once dear friend came to my door with an armful of dresses for me to have. She had originally purchased them for herself, but after a phone call we shared she no longer felt that she deserved them so she showed up at my apartment with a bag full of beautiful (if not conservatively provocative) dresses for me to try on, exhibit for her, and then own as long as I promised to wear them on a night out where we would dress as out-of-character as possible and go out to some bars pretending to be someone else. On that night, not only did we have different names, phone numbers, and marital statuses (solely for the sake of deception; we were to lie for the sake of lying, but never act on anything that would damage our real lives or loved ones. In short, we were going to give fake numbers but accepting drinks or going home with a strange man was entirely out of the question). She believed that experiencing New York as our own alter-egos would provoke feelings of guilt, which we could then absolve by the irrelevance of it all, but that same guilt would bring us closer inside of ourselves.
She stopped talking to me shortly after this idea was proposed. It was her idea, her idea that never materialized, that I was never comfortable with. So it sensible to conclude that my expulsion from her life had more to do with her than it did me. (At least, that's what I'm trying to believe).

I have spent my time evenly distributed between Boston, Kensington (Brooklyn), and Bushwick (Brooklyn). About half of the time I am lucky enough to have the company of an animal. I can't sleep nor can I stay awake. No matter which house or apartment I am at the time, I am always looking for an object I can't identify, but I can't forget its relevance, so I search and search until I find something that sets me on the trail. It is absurd to arbitrarily assign a point in time as a "beginning" and just the same to determine an "end." Time is only an excuse to understand the nature of change, to be able to believe in something called "cause and effect." Either that, or I am merely trying to justify my inability to determine one day from the next. As a child, I realized that every calendar day would occur only once, ever, in my lifetime or in eternity, and I was haunted by the importance of that July 7, 1996 and was determined to sprinkle as much fairy dust around the yard as thoroughly as possible in the event that July 7, 1996 never happened again not covering every inch of my parents' yard with large chunks of glitter could kill the fairies forever in the event that July 7, 1996 was the day all the fairies died if they didn't get their dust. I knew it was unlikely, but in the event that I was right it would save them. I also knew that no one would tell me if they knew that to be true, as not to worry me. And I was concerned that the fairies would have no way of asking for help from people because of a language or dimension barrier. I was very aware about what no one would, or could, tell me.

Again, I beg your forgiveness. When I am able to accept it, I promise to contact you.

795 words