tbh #8

no method 

can rival a letter 

written by hand

describing the thoughts the 

feelings to convey

you truly care

much less effective

to be honest 

when you fail to 

drop said letter in

the mail

#katyamills

 

so you cannot agree so what

you wanna share something make your life richer, you feel like the wealthiest one alive, really, and you wanna share it with someone who love you, they say they love you, they don't need to say they love you because they raised you, they gave birth to you, you would not have arisen from the dust without them, no, and now you grown and you wanna tell them what makes your heart beat, and you hope they will listen, and you finally get the courage to write it out in a letter and you send it, and it's okay, it's okay you say to yourself, knowing full well it's like playing the lottery, you ain't never gonna know exactly how it's coming back, could be venom, could be spit, could be vitriol, or something kinder, and this time, this time it happens to come back softer or kinder than before, maybe, and definitely better than silence, pure dead silence, so you are grateful for that at least, and no, they will not abide by your request, no way, but they want you to know they may be happy if you happy, yes, everyone deserves to be happy. you call them the next day just to say hi. there won't be any rehashing what was written. you want them to know it's okay. so you cannot agree. so what.

drowning of sorrows

I am grateful you take care and look out for one another. of course like you said I am the same spirit and soul never changed and I remember trying to tell you that but no one wanted to believe me. Not back then. But of course I had a drug problem so why would anyone believe me then. I'm just happy I had the courage to transition and find my new life. I'm glad you and I are able to have a friendship, we wont agree but still love one another. I'm proud of X for all his successes in life and keeping the family going into future generations. It can look different for anybody. For me it's not wealth or kids it's just who I am based on what I've been through. I have wisdom I am trying to pass down. I have a man in my life who loves me. Two cats and several books to my name. My success is not measured the same as yours, but I'm proud of you and Z and X, I will never have those victories but God wants it this way, God has brought me to a place where I can see and make a difference in other people's lives, where i can be home, after many years of selfish living and drowning of sorrows. K

letter to true love (1996)

Here I reprint a letter I wrote (1996) and never sent
to my first true love. We parted ways that same year.
(from my black cover diary)...

A-- ,

Do you still love me? Because I love you and I'm not fucking around when I say so. And to be perfectly clear, to make certain you understand me completely and unquestionably, I want to tell you again I love you, and I have never stopped loving you from the day I met you, through the ups and downs, the varied moods, the emotional depths and altitudes; from the joy we carried, to the coffin of pain we buried. And if you ever want back in my life, my love, there's a home for you in Tampa, FL. I will never be too proud to confess my love for you, I promise, for love is too strong to be fooled by shallow pride.

letter home

I wish I could call you and thank you for the yummy turkey and green bean casserole. I caught a bad cold so my voice is compromised. Hope you had a safe trip home and I miss you. If I'm well enough I plan to go see the family in Tahoe this weekend as Xmas falls on my day off. The last 3 months have been the hardest yet most exciting time in the past 5 years what with interviews and licensing demands and writing my book and training for my ultrarun in March. I'm taking this moment of rest to breathe (with inhalers 2 help!) and appreciate all that I'm trying to accomplish. None of it would have been possible without your help so I thank you. Love. K

six

you told me again how it happened. you found a diary from two years ago, and read me an entry from a single day. what you wrote came to pass. you got to feeling good about yourself. you were tired of living in a room and board. you stopped taking your meds when they ran out. before long, there would be empty bottles of vodka under your bed. you lost touch with reality. you stopped returning calls and closed your door, and began to drown. again...this is not the first time we have said goodbye. i make sure to hold on longer because i know how bad it gets when you fall. i am just a counselor, tangential to your life. you have worked so hard this time, i'm proud of you. you inspired the others. i hope we won't see you here again but if we do, we will be family and embrace you.

another loss - fin

in your early thirties and too young, you left behind a family and so many friends. you were reckless, we all were, yet you were good for your word, and six years ago you saw and spoke of a future for yourself, creative. i dream that it manifests on some non-material plane. it does not matter how we left one another the day after the last time i saw you, on disconnected and fractured terms, for the six foot tall skinny boy i knew, whose face i saw behind glasses sometimes at the corner of 28th and telegraph, any day any season, always had a hug and wide devious smile for me, and some stories to share. and i know, had we come across one another since, it wouldn't have been any different.

i remember us in the late afternoon sun. we had met our mutual friends on 28th by the laundromat and kicked it on the street that day, fixing bikes and listening to music. i had a brief shout-it-out with my ex-boyfriend of the hour,  nothing unusual about that. everyone knows i've been breaking up since sixth grade. by the time the sun began to edge out and the sky turning colors, I had to go and you were already gone. You had told me not to worry, you would come by the next day to pick up your bike.

the following morning I was still crashed out and making up sleep from several days end-to-end insomnia and stress of the move. when you came i missed you, and several calls you made. the messages you left were far from friendly. you thought i had made off with your bike, when it was just sitting in the backyard waiting for you. i couldn't get ahold of you after that, your phone had died and you hadn't paid the bill. i was good for my word, just like you. i kept your bike for you, for weeks.

I will always remember you well, and so sad for your child and your family and friends. it's really tragic we never got to see you shine. i wish you the best on the nonmaterial plane and hope to see you and embrace you, in the next. see that tall boy with the bowler hat and the wide and devious smile. kick back like we did, trading EDM tracks and war stories. how does that sound? sweet dreams, my friend, you are loved.

in memoriam -- JR Lindberg

KatYa

letter

one lonely night ona

edge ina pool
of light

inscribed by hand
taken from the scene

collected bya squeeze 

ofa heart

folded in thirds

double encrypted
inaccessible to all

but one

like pores
touched by witch

hazel

ona edge

ina pool

of light 

one candle

 night

kept

 from a
world and

given

you

- KatYa

lady of the table grapes

You were an endangered species, out of it, staring into your bowl of green seedless table grapes. And the weather outside was frightful. I asked you again about the backyard, and you said that you didn't grow up there, your eyelashes were too long. Nat King Cole came on the radio and I suddenly felt safer than I really was. You took out your personal fork and stabbed a grape dead. I could not make sense of you, all I knew was you had no manners and a predilection for round juicy fruits. I picked up my pen and wrote a letter to the devil, carefully, on a soft cotton sheet of medicated Kleenex... dear Satan, could you please make a home for our homicidal lady of the table grapes?

k when k was k circa 2012

chalk it off as existential slowburn -i

An old letter i wrote to someone i was in love with ...


PART I

i guess i have been thinking about this honest expression you wrote to me last night
and really worried that i might not be up to addressing it, responding in to it, even reading
it all the way through - which i finally did just now. not so many hours ago you wrote it, and
not so many hours later i read the beginning and purposefully sped through it so the feelings
would not arise. the tough ones. the ones that are the simplest proof (to me) of my love 4 you.

you really opened your eyes and stared at it, didnt you? i mean the relationship, as is, as has
evolved, what has become. i can tell. my question is rhetoric. and its very fucking discouraging,
traumatic and sad, if i look at it one way. the way i see it all when you show me no mercy and
i, in return, show you none back. why? like the argument by the bathroom that must have had
to happen (even though it sucked royally) so that we could be forced to talk about the things
that you very tellingly reminded me we have been brushing over or forgiving or letting slip out of
mind in a patterned way... to be continued

fragment

from a letter i wrote to someone i once loved
- KatYa

Mt Rose, 2016

"i love you. we've been through alot. i wont forget it.
all i can do now is just live through it with you. until maybe
i need to live through it without you? i dont know. its different
looking one day to the next."  (2011)

ellipsis

I unearthed the secret message you sent me, when I took all the words away from your letters and left only the punctuation marks and remarks. Now I can connect the dots and see what you mean. I understand you feel connected. And I still love you, too. Maybe some day we can exchange words. I know that meeting up in person is impossible. I would fall unconscious if you touched me. I accidentally rubbed all of the coating off the photograph, so there is nothing left of us now. Was the question mark between the two exclamation points several sentences apart, considered cancelled out? I will keep it circled until you tell me so. It all ended so abruptly. I am under stress and over emphasis. But in places where the words ran off the pages, I lost your meaning, you see, I sponged the table after breakfast and must have washed them out. I must dash away now. I'm really sorry for to have to ask you to repeat yourself. But I need to be sure, or else I will make a fool of myself. Please do not worry anymore. Like light over time, the image is always moving. Changing. Sometimes I wish it was blurry again, because when it's this clear it can be so sharp it hurts. Do not forget I ...

(so i write this letter) shaking salt at eggs on sunday

IF i could take your demons from you and battle them myself this day would be worthwhile, you see, it closes in on me and i don't know what to do inside my head inside my home shaking pepper on my eggs at the break of dawn on sunday. i could go to church but what difference would it make. i would rather go to see you and be with you. you won't criticize my hair or clothes behind my back. or in my face. we could laugh and talk about our boyfriends or our mothers over coffee. we used to go to the thrift stores together, remember? now i walk alone and ride the subways of my mind. my demons are okay they are not upset or acting out; even in the tunnels they sit still and quiet, hands folded, listening to the rails and feeling the side to side sway rock us into a new day. that's why i could battle yours if you would let me. the full moon fell out the window and the light is percolating and i don't know what to do inside my head inside my home shaking salt on my eggs on a sunday. so i write this letter and wait patiently for my chances. to meet someone new or be with you or you or you again, one of many long lost friends.

Surgery

Dear friends, I went in for surgery today and had my index finger on my left hand sliced open by a very kind and soft spoken MD while I talked to a really nice nurse named Renee about fireworks, Southern California and waterskiing. Good thing I hit the grocery store yesterday and bought food to sustain me for a week. My finger is bandaged and has twelve stitches making it whole. There will be pain once the numbness wears off, the doctor assured me. I have light painkillers by prescription in case I need them. I feel relaxed at home and though I have had some painful and trying times recently with close friends, god-willing I may get through it with a determined smile and wish everyone the very best. I cannot type with my hand wrapped up this way for the next two weeks, but I will use my iPhone if I must to keep writing to you all my ongoing impressions of this strange life of many miracles, uncommon pleasures and pain. I have to uncover its meaning every day and so my spirit is polished like silver to shine for you. - KatYa