Wednesday, June 10, 2009

i don't expect you to return

i've been going through your letters one by one, and i can't figure it out. there was something, way back when we were talking more, that possibly gave an indication of ideas entering your head that i know i had not put there. i think that the main problem is, you've always been resistant to my way of doing things. it may have been three, four, or any number of years back that you started on this path. you may like where you're headed. i cannot control that, and you know that i wish i could. i've always had this idea in my head, sort of an overarching theory of how things are supposed to be. life isn't always about journeys or possibilities or achievements or even about wanting to get up in the morning. yes, if those were the things by which you measured your life, i'm sure you would have left me some time ago. what you have to remember is that part of the glory in all this is the ability to say, to know, that you have your ducks in a row. you need to be out there, you have to breathe the same air with the rest of us and walk in our shoes, you have to believe that there's nothing you'll find alone that i wouldn't have been able to give you if you'd fallen in.

so, while you're away, i hope you discover something, and maybe i can even pray a little that you'll bring it back. do you have a new color, a leaf, or some particularly interesting rock that you might be able to add to the body of knowledge you've obtained under my care? were you expecting smells that could take you away from this life? i wouldn't begin to attempt to expound upon the many ways in which you could have deluded yourself, but i can tell you this: i don't expect your return. no, we've got things pretty well in order even without you. in fact, don't be surprised one morning if you wake up and find us outside your door. yeah, that one is coming. so's the other hundred or so you can almost picture in your dreams. all of them. a little scratch at night, a flickering from just outside your range of vision. someone stumbles in the alley. smoke seems to mark the limits of your imagination, hanging over the city as your mind grows blank. we don't have to go get you, because we're already everywhere.

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