Dear Thomas,
In a frame on the wall of your childhood living room, there is a photograph of you.
There you are: posed on the field of some highschool, football braced on one shoulder, eyes like emerald canvases as if there is nothing more to the game than a black and white jersey and a smile bitterly offered to the camera.
In a much smaller picture, tacked to the corkboard outside our highschool band room, there is a photograph of me. There I am: on the stage at the opening showcase last September, wearing that dress you claimed you loved so much - the one with the hemline that rests just above my knees, - my eyes closed in some sort of silent prayer, as if I can mark everything I am right there in two minutes of harnessed perfection.
In two months, the entire world will slowly tilt off its kilter. I'll let twelve years of practice morph into wasted time, and your mother will wash your jersey, hang it up in that basement closet.
But neither of us knows that just yet.
For now, everything is about to slip just too far out of reach.
In some way, I don't care about the crowds in the ampitheatre, and you're watching that ball make contact with your clet, then become untraceable. I'm thinking I can settle everything with those black and white keys set out before me, and you are rushing that field like you've got something to prove.
The truth is neither of us has ever grasped the feeling of defeat, and we are afraid of what happens when we do.
But, for now, whatever happens is supposed to happen, so let's savour this moment: before we lose ourselves and when. We are not prepared for what happens when we lose, we still believe we're supposed to win.
And, though I didn't know it yet, that is how I'm going to want to remember you: caught between four corners of a mahogany frame, back when we still did...
ns 15.158.61.8da2
