Letter from the Gulag VIII
To Kristi
Dear Kristi—
I wish you could see yourself through my eyes to know how lovely it is to see you again; and I thank God I remember you often. You’re more than just a white wall with sprawls of unsmudgeable lead grained into the ridges of its corrugated texture; a white wall divided into rectangular bricks. Sometimes I try to bang on them as though banging to the neighbors in a tenement, “quiet down!”, but alas, who is there to hear me?
This letter continued to talk about apostasy and institutional similarities between the military and prison, but I want to cut that out for now and just talk about you. Truth is, I’m tired of being so depressing all the time—honestly, I’m not that way when we’re together, am I? Or when my friends come over and I smile. I think that I’ve gotten more self-conscious about it because people naturally assume that if you’re going through something pretty bad then you’re not worth being around and besides, even if you are, they want nothing to do with it. Life is funny that way. People are only concerned about themselves and the value others can give them. I think it stunned me most to learn that love is not barricaded against this reality either. They don’t see that eventually everything can get pretty bad, and then what? Are you gonna run away? Or worse, who’s gonna run away from you? I think that’s been on my mind a lot because I never ran away, not from anyone. I think that’s been on my mind because, truth is, I’m just hurt that things weren’t as I thought they were. I guess I should be grateful about it—that I know the truth of people, even more so now, but nevertheless. It hurts.
But I said I wasn’t going to be depressing and this was going to be about you. That’s right. So here it is: I like looking at your big brown eyes in the morning and your pink pom-pom cheeks. They don’t glow for me but they glow toward me, and I’m grateful for that. I like things and people that are pretty. I like feeling the gaze of attention. I like knowing that, even for an hour, it’s all about me. It’s a bit funny though, sometimes I wish it were about you. I like the way you avoid arguing. When you feel passionate about something and disagree with me you say, “I’ll have to do more research about that.” What you really mean to say is, “you’re full of shit.” I appreciate when you called me a good man. You probably don’t remember but I do. I like that you were willing to work with my brokenness and, when you saw that it was too much for me, reminded me that maybe I wasn’t so much of a villain that I thought I was—that maybe I am really, after all, just a good man. That meant a lot. And I believed you. I wanted to believe you and so I chose to. I trusted you. You mean more to me than I to you, and that is a dynamic that I accept. Because you know it too and we both know it, and it’s honest and nice. I value honesty a lot more these days. There just isn’t enough time to be misleading or deceitful; and anyway, who wants to live like that?
Since I’ve been back, I’ve only seen you once. Everyone is so busy these days. I wonder if this is what I was like a year ago (it seems like so much longer). I will say this: I should have been more attentive to people who loved me then. I know what it’s like now to call out and have no one respond. You know, it’s funny, one would think that all of this would turn me into some vengeful tyrant. But no. I’m just disappointed. And feeling a little petty too, to be honest. Like wishing everyone got a paper cut or something, or their headphones snapped, or there’s always snow in their driveway.
I might not see you again, I realized. At least, that’s what I’m afraid of. But I don’t think I’m afraid of it that much anymore. It makes me sad, sure, but not so much afraid. I understand that you might think that time is up. I got that sense last time. It kind of hurt. But what doesn’t hurt me these days?
I think that in honor of you I’m going to do what I told you I was going to do: to be as authentic as I can be. What else do we really have besides that? What else can we control? I think also that I’m going to try to love some people as well. Maybe fall in love with that girl (I probably already did—there’s always some girl, isn’t there? Did I tell you about her?, I don’t think so).
So I wanted to thank you. Talking to you was the highlight of my week sometimes. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for laughing at my dry humor. If you faked it all, that sucks. But thanks, anyway. At least then, it felt real.
I’ll keep the ending here.
Sometimes I spot silhouettes of faces and bodies in the penciled sprawls on the wall, like a bear walking away from me, further into the white nothingness, or a figure leaning back from the weight of the box he’s holding. Sometimes I think of how joyful it’ll be to taste food again, to drink clean water, to see and feel the sunlight on my paling skin; I think of kissing her neck and holding her in the hopes she’s waiting for me: the grand illusion of man’s thoughts. And sometimes I think of you and all this transference I’m feeling, have been feeling, and thinking that you know it and have known it. I envy the man who holds your hand and can tell you without reproach that I miss you.
Earnestly,
Jacob