dear girl,
i’m writing you a letter first because you can’t bring yourself to write to me no matter how hard you don’t try. i saw you winking at my anatomy, wishing on stars that i’d surpass the distance and see you. you wished that we’d take jazz lessons so we could swing dance through the ballroom sky; that we’d watch scary movies just so you could hide behind my cushioning arm; that we’d swim through the cold air of the stratosphere like the pools in the backyards of casinos we walked in just to gamble romance away. we’d do all that and more, but the atlantic ocean erased the chroma from our vivid universe and vacuumed the wishing-well-stars from our mouths.
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dear boy,
i'm not quite sure if i've told you this before, but your writing to me sends tingles down my spine and makes me smile. i'm sorry i could not be the first to send you my letter; it’s because i'm oh-so-scared-of-how-you-would-react. but don’t worry, dear, that’s all past me now. we can get back to doing the twist and stunning everyone in the town hall. the lights will make your teeth glitter in the dark and we'll fall in love with the dancefloor because it’s the only place where we can be real. star-wishing is pointless if we have no one to wish for, so how about we stick to activities we know like singing songs of praise for the potatoes and my half-irishness.
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dear girl,
our neon dreams match the color of this city, but you know just as well as i do that dreams really don't come true. walt disney was a liar who made up fairytale endings and stories like aladdin with lamps and genies that could bring me to you, but that's just absurd. i bought a pair of one-way planetickets, but then i realized my heart is a passport that i can't show the flight attendant. so i missed my ride, but i'd much rather fly on your mattress like a magic carpet. too bad fate is like jafar, and my googled wings are too tired to take me to your continent.
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dear boy,
it's okay; i forgive you. my celtic speech is not for everyone, and my continent is not as good as you seem to perceive. it would be much better with you sitting on my bed or being my prince charming, and i can be the pumpkin carriage. our favorite colour is orange because your fingers taste like them, while mine taste like lies like hope and desire, but you're allergic to both. you have an obsession for confusing my confused confusion, but anything with ‘you’ and ‘obsessed’ in the same sentence is good enough for me.
if you were in jail, i’d travel across frozen worlds to see you for seventeen hours everyday, but it would be a hell of a lot easier if i lived in your imagination; then we could talk for eternities, and the guards would call us mr and mrs crazy which has such a lovely ring to it. you know i’d fall in love if you sang me songs, but your voice sounds like broken metal and dust and i don’t want any part of that.
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dear girl,
i’m sorry if the contents of my pants flutter your mind; i’d buy car insurance for your disarray, but unfortunately i’ve wasted all money on silly airfare and other futile efforts to be with you. and i’m also sorry you can’t stop writing about me; i’m as addicting as the foreign alcohol you drink every night to forget about me or the nicotine in the cigarettes i hid in the chords of your dresser. you know i can play the piano on my keyboard and type on it too, which is where i send you on treasure hunts for waldo that we all know you can’t win; the maestro in me keeps stuttering over the abc’s and do-re-mi’s of us, and it really isn’t as easy as most people pretend it is.
believe me, honey, but as much as it sucks, penpals is all we’ll ever be. no matter how many times you apologize, you still know the only time we can be is when our dreams intertwine. sorry hun, but my talentless voice has worn itself out from screaming your name, so i can’t sing you songs of princesses and happilyeverafters. these broken letters weep salty seas with me too, girl. there’s a million ways to die but i’d rather drown, and there’s a reason they call it man overboard.
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dear boy,
i’ve got nothing else to write because my mind is a blank. i'm the white canvass which you paint your achromatic dreams of me dying. i would leave you notes in your back pocket saying please-don’t-stop and remember-me-always, but i know you’d just toss them in the washing machine with my pink underwear and turn your white shirts mahogany. i wish i could stop apologizing, but you take over too much of my sleep, resulting in my sighs of “you're confuzing my brian”. you just laugh at my spelling mistakes and my heartbreaks for you. if i had known you scream my name i would spend more time outside waiting to hear your cracked american accent, but instead i dream of meeting your mom and going to starbucks together.
we both know happilyeverafters don’t exist and that i could never be your princess, but boy you could bring blood from a stone with a smile like yours. i know that you’ll only ever be the name behind the icon even when i wishandwishandwish. i know you want to protect me like i want to dance with you, but your luck is out with me because i have my life savings badge, so drowning isn’t an option with me around. plus why would you want salty rainwater in your lungs when you could have me.
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dear girl,
goodbye.
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dear boy,
never forget me.
