dear frida (coming september 1st)

written in copper ink

paper held to heart four, five times

dear frida,

i am so sorry about what i wrote you yesterday. i was upset. i still am, but less so.

i wasn't fair to you. you're so much more than a dead woman. but you're a dead woman too, and i see that now, so i feel like it's time to acknowledge that.

so here i go.

july 1954, you wrote in your diary "i hope the exit is joyful - and i hope never to return - frida". few days later, you died. official cause of death: pulmonary embolism, but some people think you overdosed, possibly on purpose. i don't know what i believe. all i know is you made a painting of water melons with "viva la vida" on them, then exited.

diego said that day was the most tragic in his entire life, and that his appreciation for your love had come too late. (everything always comes too late, doesn't it?)

your ashes are held by a pre-columbian urn in your casa azul. that sounds so pretty. it is pretty, too. though it looks so small on the pictures. i can't fathom how it fits an entire being, an entire life.

i read multiple admirers and friends threw themselves on top of you while an automatic cart was carrying you to the oven, trying to get hold of a ring, of a piece of you. it sounds plain grotesque to me, but i can't guarantee i wouldn't have done the same.

i also read that the heat of the furnace made your body sit upright one last time. i don't know if i want to believe that. bystanders say your hair caught fire - it looked like an aureole, like a sunflower, like something not to be put in an urn.

when the doors opened again, hours later, your ashes were still in the shape of your skeleton, and diego pulled out a sketch book to make one last drawing of you. (i think he really loved you. or at least he thought he did, and he tried.)

(all we ever do is try.)

i haven't stopped wearing my thrift clothes. i've thrown out the ones that smell too much of leander, though. i'm going to go shopping with fattouma to find some new stuff. i haven't told her about andy dessen yet, and i don't think leander has either. when she sent a message in our group chat, he said he had a fever.

i've got a fever too - there's a hotness in my skin. it prickles and it makes me listen to loud music.

you know, you once described a rosarch ink blot as "a strange butterfly full of hair, flying downward very fast" and that's how i feel.

i don't know what's going to happen. i still want to be friends with fattouma - this i know. i don't know if i still want to be friends with leander. or no, i know i still want to be friends with leander, but i don't want to be friends with andy, and leander is andy. i wish i could dissect him, take out the parts i don't want, then do it to myself. i wish i could rearrange our puzzle pieces.

on the anniversary of the russian revolution you wrote the following on a post card: "Tree of Hope / stand firm! I'll wait for you —b. / . . . your words which / will make me grow and / will enrich me / DIEGO I'm alone."

LEANDER i'm alone.

i've never been this alone.

yours truly,

lei