Dear You is on the move!

from LA to the UK to Canada and beyond.

Watch this space, as some exciting new projects are in the works!

I'm calling the lawyers.

Dear You,
whoever you are. I used to have a definite article to which I could address such matters.
I used to recall saying "you" whispering it sometimes, other times it would appear scrawled inside little journals, or caught in my throat, trying to get out as I tried to breathe into your ear everything that I thought I wanted. now I am surround by "I's" and "Me's". I have become my own lover,and thus, have begun to try and court myself. I am the last fish in the sea, and that sea must be the water I leave behind in other people's bathtubs. I look for your face in windows, and on trains, and through hazy eyes over coffee tables at parties. I cling my eyes like tiny claws to any face that I can imagine waking up next to, and not feeling sick. I once had a "you." and I would tire myself out with that word. I love you Imiss you I need you can you pass me the bread? what are you doing later? where did you go ?why did you leave ?why didn't you ask me to stay? why wouldn't you hold my hand in the restaurant? why did you refer to me as your friend?
now all I say is I want. I'm writing love letters to myself, I'm dreaming up great love affairs with the idea of those coffee table faces. I'm living in the fiction where I get the guy, where everything falls into place. because you aren't here, because you don't exist. I'm writing home to a place I've never been too. I've been stood up on a date that hasn't been arranged yet. I'm writing poems for all the lovers that will never know how I prefer to take my tea. I'm carving names into trees, trees that will never come into season, and names that I will never nervously say, floating over the tops of sweaty palms, that I won't dare shake. I have made a private world, in which I am trapped in an arranged marriage with myself. Tomorrow, I tell myself, I'll call the lawyers, and pack my shit, and tell the children that I love them, but me and myself just couldn't make it work, I'll tell myself that I want a divorce, and my new lover will pick me up at the airport and I'll light up a cigarette and be someone else. I tell myself this, but in reality I will probably just close my eyes and wonder what your mouth tastes like.

insomnia.

Dear You,
Sometimes I think I act like some kind of pseudo-psychologist- know -it -all deeper than the ocean -star crossed lover -big picture thinker -creative soul- kitchen sink astrologer -with daddy issues -who over stays her welcome.
I'm insecure, and I'm naive, and I give it all away up front. I talk during movies and know endless amounts of useless trivia. In short, I am annoying. I am that sappy eyed puppy child that follows all the cool kids around.
I am the best friend who falls in love with you, but keeps quiet as I help you pick out something nice for your girlfriend on valentines day. I am the kind of girl who actually thinks a letter like this one could really change someone's mind. I wonder how many of my memories of you are just my own fantasies mulled over a million ways
and projected onto every surface, reflected and refracted off your eyeballs into mine, so that I think they're reality.
you were the foreman of my heart but your burnt the blue prints and quit the project ("I can't work in these kind of conditions") But I kept working overtime, doing your job, I'm breaking my own heart now so that you don't have to get stressed out over that too. you are the proverbial charming trouble maker loved by school girls and teachers and mothers alike. it's like Tyler Durden taking Peter Pan's Wendy out for a milkshake. one glass, two straws.
but I didn't feel stupid around you. I didn't feel the girl in the "before" picture. I didn't feel like a square -wet blanket -sissy tattle- tale -brace-face -cry-baby. I know you don't kiss all the girls like that. or maybe you do. maybe I don't give a shit either way (she tried to say with conviction but the stupid little heart on her sleeve gave her away) I know when you dream, you dream of yourself but better, and not an asshole.I wonder if you lay around naked eating cereal and laughing hysterically with all the girls. I wonder if you hand select the records you are going to play for them, or is it only for the girls that have record players? I wonder if a bottle of whiskey and chinese takeaway is just your "go-to" date when you can't think of anything creative to do. I wonder if you always inch your hand towards theirs under the covers after a fight as your silent way of saying sorry. I wonder if you tell all the girls that "right now you just wanted to hold them as tightly as you could." I wonder if they all have nicknames. I wonder if all of them let you fuck them in their kitchens and bathrooms and in cars parked next to that apartment complex, and on trampolines or beach towels in the garden. I wonder if they all know how wonderful you really are. I wonder if I was special, but for the first time in my life not because my daddy ran away and boys wouldn't look at me that way and I never got asked to dance and my ipod didn't have cool music on it and I laughed too loud and didn't wear thong underwear and I was scared we would get in trouble and I gave it all away up front and I talked during the movie and I was always embarrassed or hurt or worried and I need you to tell me that I'm pretty and funny and witty and smart and great in bed and a fantastic dancer and that I "get" you and it's me and you against the world and we talk like were in a woody allen film and the soundtrack sounds like garden state and that you run through the airport and say "oh my god, I love you like no one has ever loved you or will love you and whatever you do please don't get on that plane because I can't sleep can't eat can't breathe without you I think you're the one let's get fucking married." I want to know if I was special so that I can get a good nights sleep and say yes when other men ask me out to dinner. I want to know because the unknown hurts more than the truth. I wonder if I'll ever sleep.

love always,
me.

Love lost, love letter found.

This note was found by my lovely friend Natalie, outside her house.

or else i will.

received via snail mail.

i left you to rot. i love you.

(Click letter to enlarge)

everyone needs their own secret garden, their hidden attic

received this letter via email:

(this was originally a hand-written letter, which I have transcribed here because the letter itself is long gone. It is the first and only love letter I’ve ever written. This was written by a girl, to another girl.)

Dear ___________,

This letter is a little intimidating for me to write now that I’m actually doing it. I’ve written and rewritten it many times in my head for a long time. I decided today that it was time to write this letter because I was thinking idly “If I died today, would I have any regrets?” At first I didn’t think of anything, but then I realized that if I kept waiting to write you and never got around to it, I WOULD regret it, and that regret would far, far overshadow any anxiety or fear I felt at how you would react to a letter like this. I am intimidated, to be honest. The things I want to express run deep, and ways to explain them can be hard to condense out of the vapor of abstract emotions.I want you to know that in the past couple years since leaving high school, every day we had been able to hang out, I always appreciated that time so much. Those minutes were—and are—very precious to me. I’d always try to cling on to each moment, memorize it every time in detail, memories to be treasured and folded away—and unfolded again to be looked at so often, that if they were physically tangible, creases would be worn into them by now.Those memories are so important to me because to me, you mean a lot. You mean a lot to me. I don’t know if that can be overstated. You have had an enormous impact on my life and how I view things. I admire and cherish you. I would go as far as to say I love you. Even saying it makes me feel a little uncomfortable because it’s such a loaded word. If there’s anything I managed to learn in college, love comes in all colors and hues. Mine’s just a quiet, strong affection. It may be that I’m not doing such a good job at explaining myself but the love’s coming from a different kind of place, a place most people probably forgot about.I didn’t interact with you very much in the high school years, and sometimes I play the thought experiment, try to imagine how different things would have been if I had sat next to you in freshman English class, instead of in the corner. You seemed quiet, painfully so. You and I were completely different—but somehow through the years, that seems to have faded away. Maybe I don’t completely know you, the way other people may have used to. But that doesn’t bother me so much. Everyone needs their own secret garden, their hidden attic. What I see of you, I accept. You have flaws. So does everyone else. Sometimes they’re deal-breakers. Sometimes not. It differs from person to person. For me, to me…you, you just are who you are.Usually, when we meet someone new, we’re starting on a blank canvas. Maybe we hit it off, maybe we don’t. But more often than not, the more we get to know them, the less we end up liking them. You know you’ve met someone wonderful when the process is the opposite—the more we learn about them, the more we like them. It was a long time before you and I became friends. It perhaps worked out for the best that way. We had time to grow and change and adjust our perceptions. I’m still growing, definitely.I think you have one of the richest souls I’ve ever had the fortune to meet. I cherish the time we spend together, and I marvel at your patience with me. You have done so much that I am grateful for. The week when you came up to see me in San Francisco is still something I reminisce about often. Even up to the point where I was at the station waiting for you, I didn’t really believe you’d actually be there, on the platform, walking towards me and laughing at the look on my face. In senior year of high school, when I was frazzled and upset about college admission and my upcoming surgery, you were really cool about letting me come chill with you, something we had never done before. I went into surgery the next day feeling marginally less scared shitless. It also meant a lot to me that you kept the letter I sent you from Africa. There’s so many other things, I could go on and on, but it doesn’t seem so necessary now.I haven’t seen you for about two years now. I miss you, and I hope you’re at peace…I hope you’ve found the happiness that eluded you so often when we were younger.