A Part. Apart. Ah Part.

Dear Loved One,

I just got back from walking a darling dog.  She kept on telling me, “She’s gone.”  “She’s gone!”  She usually doesn't act like this, she is usually fine with all of this (looks around a dark corner of the city where a tower looks down on everything).  The usual countdown alarm for her allowance to investigate: OOOOOOOOOOne, TWWWOOOOOOO, THRRREEEEEEEE, FFFOOUUUURRRRRRRR, FFFFFFIIIIIVVVEE, (we don't usually get to this number, this doesn't sound right.) SSSSSSIIIIXXXX (no, definitely not this far), SEEEEEEEEEEAAAAVVVEEEEEEENNNN, (this is really strange, really strange) NNNIIIIIINNNNEEE, (no, wait.), [stop]...didn't work, she needed ten, then eleven, and when I stopped counting with my mouth the silence counted for us.  (whispers as loud as a thought) twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.  There.  The shit.  

There.

The shit.

Washing the dishes.  These dishes K. and I made.  K. and I.  I realized right then and there - that - we (you and I) - moved - apart.  That K. wasn't F. and that F. wasn't K.  It was the spirit of the companion.  F. help me find that spirit, but the spirit existed before F..

I wanted to forget you once.  Because I was losing too much sleep.  That each person after you didn't remind me of you, they just reminded me that they weren't you.  What delusion.  

I realized one of my biggest fears is having people realize my disabilities.  And then for them to either act nice towards it as to entertain it.  Somewhere down the line, many years ago, I must've shut the flow to that thought and that notion.  That look on my teacher's face, she knows what kids she's taking care of, she's giving us extra care, she is loving, but she knows something we do not, and perhaps will never really know.  And over the years we forget about this membrane that is smoggy, that we are looking through but barely, that we are able to observe with squinting eyes a world that very much resembles what it is but not quite.

I didn't choose art, its terms choose me.  That because I can't step over that line, through the membrane.  I learned to read and I learned to write.  When I was child I used to end all my first written complete sentences with "...".  Teachers would laugh.  I did something good.  They laughed.  I haven't stopped.  Laughter is my award.  That's what says I am approved.  All I want is a laugh.  Art allowed my rearrangement of the world to be approved.  Artists could be jesters.  That they could freely criticize the king and royalty, the poor, and the self.  They were all equal, there for a laugh.  So there was the rearrangement and there was the approval.  Do well at this because those are the two things you have to get done today.  

...

We work well with together because we're both in this.  I don't run into those moments often.  That perhaps it is the only moment I don't feel alone.  When I am with you.  Because we're both in this.

I could see it in K.'s eyes.  That she's in it, too.  In different ways than you and I.  She thinks abstract, because she is abstract.  I don't want to say I'm there for her because I understand what she is going through.  I want to say I'm there for K. because I wish someone would do the same for me.  I don't expect.  I learned to not expect anything.  Without the bitter taste, that nihilist gaze to a future without hope.  No, darling, I'm far from that.

...

We had our arguments.  There were times I thought I was wronged and I didn't say anything.  I know when an argument will go nowhere, that words come off as attacks.  I hate that.  I just want to share my point of view, as neutral as possible.  We had our arguments, I held things back, and we would have our arguments.  But in all that aggression, all those times I felt I wronged or I did wrong, or I felt like I asked you for too much, I knew we were stuck with each other.  That made any argument feel like a bump in the road, we still keep going, always.  Into infinity.

K., forgive me.  

F., forgive me.

Please.

Sincerely,

C.

You Still Know How To Howl

Hi Milo,

We've known each other for a very long time but we have never met in the flesh, that our eyes never looked deep within each other's eyes.  I was the warmth when you felt alone.  I was the strength that helped you back up when you fell and felt lost.  On lonely nights I was the rest and tranquility you found.  And when you dreamed I dreamed the same dream and saw the same things as you.  You don't know what I look like but I know in my heart you know I am here, I am always here.

Milo when you were in the hospital and your parents sat by your bed for hours with worried eyes I was laying beside you.  When you would hide after those nasty boys would tease you I was the relief that each teardrop gave you.  I cry when you cry, I am hurt when you are hurt.  But what separates us is that you feel the physical of each cut, of each fall, each time you feel reject.  I am conflicted without being able to take that physical pain away, to steal that experience and experience it for myself.  I look to you as my conduit to the physical world as I was your conduit to the spirit realm.  And perhaps you can say I am lost without you as these feelings are would be without an author.

I was born many generations ago.  My ancestors were wilder than I am and that they began to trust humans more and more.  As humans went from visiting our wild lands to living and farming them my ancestors were given two choices: leave everything they knew in search of a new home or adapt to coexistence.  In adaptation my ancestors saw the land as no one's, it was plenty and boundless and enough to share.  And so they shared.  They began to see changes and these changes forced them to adapt and adapt some more.  They made sacrifices, they saw traditions no longer viable and lost to the dawn of a new age.  They were ready for all of this when they made their decision but I can imagine their surprise at how endless this change, this adaptation would be for them (I wonder if it has ever stopped).

Part of their adaptation was letting the humans know they were there.  At first they started to leave their scat around the trees the humans had cut down.  They'd howl just before the dawn.  Then they would even allow the humans to see them from time to time.  Over generations they moved closer and closer to the humans until one day my mother looked one into the eyes.  Both were locked in a gaze deep within the darkness of the iris and were lost.  This was when I became I.  When the howl became the bark and the fur was brushed with the hands of a human.  In that moment, both of our hearts lowering a few beats less as we moved a few step slower.

A lot has happened since.  Humans have moved further away from the wild and from our mother.  They live in rocky cities where life struggles to exist.  They make escapes whenever they can to the forest, to the ocean, and in the valley where animals run free.  They come to these places not as friends but as strangers.  They are lost without their ties to the rocky cities and so they return only after a few days.  Like the whale surfacing for air, they come on the rare occasion only to return to another world.  But humans are not whales, they need air for more often, they need to breathe deeper and move slower.

We found each other in just the right place.  I am here as your guide but you also guide me.  I have grown curious of the world you live in, how it has changed over generations.  I even see how you struggle to exist here and I often feel guilty for this.  For we share the same spirit, you and I.  We are both wild and belong where nature is free to grow and to move at its pace.  We are also wanderers and find our place in roaming.  We enjoy good company wherever it is.  We live by our hearts and are honest to it.  And I believe you know how to howl.  So howl for the both of us.  Cry out into the early morning sky.  Wake even the sun into its day.  For we are dawning and it is time that we embrace.

I have always been here with you.  In our many forms in our many lives.  We've gone through a lot together, and there is still so much more.  Together, yes, together, we'll get through it all.  Now howl with me.

- C.L.