Postcards, Poem, and Ocean Vuong!

May your house be made of feathers. May you sleep in it lightly.

Sep 18, 2023

On a Monday night, I write to you as yet there is no other thing the hands and the heart demand more.

Sharing with you some postcards for friends. Your friends. My friends. Our friends.

Dear,

You know how they say that it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye; that’s how I feel when I think of you. I don’t know you much, or probably at all, but it doesn't really matter. I'm pretty naive that way; I have to say what I feel, and I do like it this way. I feel there's a lot of space for friendship between us. I genuinely feel that some people have known each other from before, in some other world or dimension. There's this sense of familiarity or safety around them. You're one of those people, light as a feather. There isn't much else to say except that it'd be nice to have you around and be there for you and hold space as and when needed. Consider this my heartfelt wish to be your friend.

Love always

Dear,

For some oddly comforting reason, you always remind me of that Frank O'Hara quote, “In times of crisis, we must decide again and again whom we love.” I think if I were to be around you for a long time, I would choose to love you for the kind of friendship I feel with you.

Do you remember when I once said that I’d miss you if I were to shift to a new city? I meant it. I think I’ll really miss you, and there are more ways of missing someone than loving them.

You were one good thing about my not-so-good life when I met you, and you still are. I love your idiosyncrasies, and I think you're bearably rude, haha.

I hope you find ways to cling on to life and reason.

Love always

Dear,

There's nothing more difficult than to achieve a quiet, sincere faith; and I think friendship with you feels that way. You make things lighter around you, I'm sure all your friends feel that way.

I love how much you love your friends, and how much you value friendship in life. Your love for simple, low-key, sincere things. Taking a stroll around, dancing a little, taking photographs. All reasons are there to admire you. But I admire you for all the reasons you think you’re not so admirable, if there are any.

With this postcard I give you a hug from the heart. If and whenever in life you choose to look back and turn around, you shall see me standing there.

Love always

Dear,

Even though we do not know each other, it’s not good enough a reason not to write to someone. There are flowers that bloom early and flowers that bloom late, but there are no flowers that don’t bloom at all; and within your own time and space and your own secretive moments, you’ll always bloom. I see you’re fond of films and stories, and what I wish for you is that beautiful ideas grow out of your tiny head and change someone’s life. The world isn’t very favorable for women, but I wish your art surpasses all the margins and takes centerstage; it won’t be a testimony to your work but the courage you carry in your heart. With this postcard, I offer you my friendship. Whatever happens from here, you’ll not be alone.

Love always

Dear,

What I wish for you is that your silliness slips away from the corners of your lips out into the world, and takes you to places that are barely ever discovered by the human eyes. I keep remembering this quote from The Little Prince, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

What I really feel is that at the end of it all, love makes us realize that the damage done to us isn’t permanent. If you’re on the floor crying, know that I’m on the floor with you. If you’re visiting the sky, know that I’d be the first to watch you from here. To me, you’re a friend, a flower, a silent film. Always remember, you’re not of this world, do not be fooled by it.

Love always

Dear,

Admirable is the loveliest thing a heart could birth, and it is the only thing I have the slightest idea about. Admiring from a distance feels familiar to me, and without knowing you or how or why, I’ve admired you from a distance. From the moment you read this, know that you’ll carry love with you everywhere, made purely and only for you, in moments of unnerving sadness and skin-kissing joy, in every tear, and in every fleeting smile. Feathers are not as light as you are, I hope you shine in all the places you go to. I’m writing this in a moment of vulnerability and music, I share it with you. I’m not the best at hugs; in fact, very awkward, but I’m sending you the warmest hug, on this day, in this moment.

You keep walking, my friend, there’s so much to see, and I’m right behind you.

Love always

Dear,

I’ve never said anything with certainty, always with a ‘perhaps’, but I want to tell you that the evening light makes me hope. I don’t know what you were like as a little girl, or the things you wanted, but I hope at the end you get something that serves the insides of your personhood. Eat veggies, go on walks, paint a lot; there’s nothing more I want for you than good health and good sleep. If the ground ever slips beneath your feet, know that your people be there to have you land in their gentle palms. Whoever it is you pray to, or do not pray to does not matter, just keep the prayer, the prayer is everything.

Dedicating this Emily Dickinson poem to you —

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee.

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

- Emily Dickinson

Remember, the revery alone will do.

Love always

A poem for you:

“PATHETIC” by SUZANNE ZEITMAN

How long have I been sitting on the couch, in a nightgown with a worn-out cardigan on top? Across from me hang seven pictures: two of my dead parents, five more of my daughter (also dead). All I have to do is look at any one of them to shrink inside with feeling there is much I should have done but didn’t. I hear a child outside yell what sounds like I don’t want to be lonely. If this were a poem, I think, now would be the time for some tiny joy of nature to appear and mitigate the speaker’s pain. Perhaps a crimson cardinal on the window sill. But if the cardinal won’t show up, what then? Or if it does, but keeps colliding with the window while attacking its reflection in the glass? What if nothing, surely no deluded cardinal, soothes you, and it’s you who wants to scream because you’re lonely, and there is no cheery cardinal, child or grandchild to sustain you? Maybe your life really is random and meaningless and thus irredeemable, and you can’t turn it or the poem around—but the poem, at least, doesn’t have to go on like this.

Something to watch for you:

"My obsession with trying to capture the importance of everything.”

Until next time, my lovelies!

With love,

Prashant.

Kafkasbluebug

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