My Love,
Its sounds beautiful there. Love made visible can really be something, even in the confines of a wedding. Speaking of which, I’ve been trying on what you gave me in Toledo and thinking...
I have been thinking of Philadelphia. I didn’t know you then but I loved you still. I recall the loneliness of that city, the objects on my windowsill attempting to add up to something. The first night I spen on 8th street and how a roach skuttled across my air matress. THe persisitant cat pee smell, the time J called after two years of not speaking because she found out my parents split. I remember the temperature there—it always felt too hot or too cold. But mostly I remember the feeling of knowing there was something I had to dobut not knowing what it was. I remember going ot the Philadelpha Musuem of Art to see Zoe Strauss’s photographs and knowing I’d remember the woman with the Daddy tattoo but being unsure why. That city was the first time I heard Second Hand News and understood it, during a Headlong Dance theater piece. It was the first time I went to an abandoned building with N and S to dance all the night and the frist time I went to strip club in a row home with G after eating coconut cream pie. Hell, it was the first time I took pictures of myself, knowing they were for someone, for you.
I recount all this for you because those were some of the hard times that I didn’t know how to talk about. It was also when I began looking for you and began looking at art. There’s no way to warn you of past sorrow’s recurrance in the future but I wish I could. I wish I could protect you. If Cleveland in 2017 is for lovers then Philadelphia in 2010 must be too. And Boston in 1994 and Alaska in 1989 and Houston in 2020.
I’m scared for this to end happily. I’m sleeping in the gallery, looking up old heartbreaks online and drinking leftover white wine from an opening. It’s under these circumstances that I’m saying yes. Yes. Here is my best and worst self. It’s mine and yours. It listens to Rihanna and hates reptiles and runs away and worries you will too. I love you. I love the ring. I will love at least one of the above forever.
Will you meet me in Philadelphia?
Love,
K
