Dedicated to the boy with extra A's who thought he had all the A's in the world but couldn't find nine. I have a thing for boys whose names begins with the letter Z, but your double A made me feel right at home. This is for you.
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To the astronaut,
The day you showed up on my doorstep was the day my lungs forgot how to breathe. You reminded my lungs how much they loved the taste of air. I felt like I was in space. I had to remind myself over and over again to breathe. Breathe, breathe, breath. But you taught me this trick, if you said something over and over again, it loses it's meaning. It became my favourite game. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. See, nothing. You taught me this trick, if you said something over and over again, it loses its meaning. If you just keep breathing and breathing, one day you'll forget why.
When you spoke to me, you accidentally stole my heart. (read: can I have it back?) Wait, no. Steal is done lightly and gently. Is there a word for reaching into my chest and grabbing my heart forcefully? There should be. You see, there are only so many words you can fit into a phone call or a text message or even a postcard before you realise words are more than to fill the empty void of silence hanging around. But there are so little words that can fully grasp the way I feel. Surely there isn't a word that expresses the amount of times I long to taste the flavour of your kiss? How badly I want to trace the high slope of your nose? Is there a word for that? I wish there was. I would have said it. I had already fallen in love with far too many postage stamps and synonyms when you appeared in my life wearing a postcard promise. That's why when you left, I sent you a postcard with the image of the nook of my arm. I wish you were here. . .
Now, years later, I still wonder about you. Would you still tell me about the sandwich you made for lunch today if you were still here? How the tomato fits so perfectly against the lettuce? Do you still strum your guitar topless in the middle of the night, convinced that practice makes perfect? But practice does not make perfect., practice makes permanent. Repeat the same mistake over and over again, and you don't get any closer to being John Lennon, even I know that. Repeat the same mistake over and over again, and you don't get any closer. You never get any closer.
Still now, I send letters into space, hoping some mailman somewhere will track your down and recognize you from the description in my letters. He will place the stack of them gathering dust in under my bed in your hands and tell you, "there's a girl out there who still writes to you because she does not know how not to."
