dear alex

as i look up from the pages of your words to search the eyes staring out from your photograph, i wonder do you ever pause in the midst of your tormented musings to see that this is really “it”? that this is the very moment, the very beauty, the very life that you seem to mistakenly, tragically suppose you are missing?

do not imagine that your torment, your longing, your sadness, your aloneness are sharper than my own. but do not imagine either that i seek reprieve from the pain and freedom and wonder of it all. of willing, eager hopelessness and helplessness.

i ask you, alex—because i genuinely long to know—do your words closely and fully reflect how you see existence and your place in “it”? or are they merely side notes scribbled in the margins of your consciousness? a consciousness that embraces all of the pain and joy and death and life, which, upon closer (or perhaps farther) reflection, are all the same this that is “it” that is beautiful.

love, x.