IN THE ENVELOPE (A LETTER I WROTE TO A FRIEND)

It is a new month and I am wild with winter.
 
Outside, a new kind of cold has possessed my city. It is the kind of cold that takes from you – a cold that is starving, a cold that is entire, a cold that is exhausting. I never thought I was a cold weather person, but tonight I am in love with the wickedness. Brie, I have to tell you – I have to say something: this is the happiest I have ever been. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so good, feel so alive, feel so free, for so many days at a time. But I do.
 
 The other night I hopped a train to the other side of the city. I crept into a bookstore that sold coffee and spring rolls, killed time and wandered between leaning shelves. At 7 o’clock I settled into a foldable chair and listened to the poet who inspired me when I was thirteen. I stood in line and I met him, this poet who made me realize words don’t have to stay on the page. And I took a picture and our faces shared the same light for a second and when I stepped outside it was snowing.
 
The train home shuttled across the Charles river, dark as glass, and snow stuck to the windows and lights laughed softly over the water. The walk out of the station was blistering, full of wind and snow and hair caught on lipstick. I walked past my dorm to the garden. I stood under the hollowed auburn light of a streetlamp. Looked up at how the wind swirled snow under the light. Breathed, and breathed, and breathed.
 
I don’t know. I just feel so good again. Don’t let me forget this. 

​yours in haste,