it's a year since we last spoke. even with all this endless, deathly silence, she casts a shadow over me. i've been dreaming of her quite often lately, as she was, so much larger than life, when i became more than just a boy for her. this dreaming, it's unusual; of my lovers, this is the first love, the first to break me down, and the last i allow myself to muse upon, as the damage is old but deep. these dreams, they are sad and quiet, thick with saturated light, as though regret were a white morning fog through which i must chase her departing form.

we made art. we sold drugs. we made vows and we threw them in the raging river. we were reckless and burning. we were hair and sweat. a tryst, a heist, a cherished wreckage.