published June 4, 2001
written by Daniel Wolff / New York
illustrated by Vasus Das / New York

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Dear John:

            I'm having a little trouble in

a lot of ways knowing where to begin.

            There were three of them and one

of me, and it was like they were furious about something,

something I'd done. And you know what I've done, John?

Nothing.

            The room they took me to was the kind

you wrote about: ceiling

gone, walls down. So, when the first one got on top,

I could see right through to sky.

Blue sky. Like nothing would ever stop.

            Here's how people react:

                   · First, they ask if I hurt.

                   · Then, they ask why

                   I was there, as if what I'd done

                   wrong was to walk in the city where I live.

                   · Then, at the end, they say, “Well, life goes on.”

            Don't you love it?

I want to say, "Prove it."

I want to say, "How much do you have to forget, in order to forgive?"

            I'm okay, John. I have this one scratch

the whole sideways length of my back.

But when I catch myself in the glass,

it's like Braille--and the world gone blind.

It's this feeling

that my body is signaling people: my ass,

my tits. As if the shape of my lips begged for a kiss.

As if all the peep shows and jerk books

were based on this,

on me. Never mind how we think about each other and all that worn-

out talk. It's the basic form--the way we fit--that needs to be torn

down. When? And how? And by whom, John?

            I'm not writing to ask for help.

It's just that I am not--and will not be--myself.

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