A Special Letter

My love!

I know I owe one to you since the time I began the series of letters, but I just wished for a day like today. Where the words would simply wield out of me. You -- I first came to know of from the Mirror. What a terrible fish to know at such a tender age for the sake of petty things called marks. Had it not been a good one I fear I would have shunned you too, like Arithmetic, or Social Studies. What made you, you?

You reappeared in my life at a time of utmost turbulence, not offering a solution or solace with your words, but the sense of familiarity -- like a known smell, or a fond memory -- you did blanket me warm. It was therapeutic to know someone else went through worse, and made the best out of it -- wrote it out. One by one, I lived your language, your confessions. Those powerful poems, the simple stories, them blatant entries and of course the gripping sketches. And The Bell Jar. Perfection is boring, so you made the distortions poetic.

And you stayed on. Thus began our journey of togetherness. You are a mean woman, you know it well. I don't understand how you manage to make your garland of appreciators dance around your fingertips! You wreath a dictate of desire to read more, know more. And we linger. To die along.

Sylvie, of the many mistakes I have made in my life, one of the greatest has been selecting you/your works for my thesis topic. I am cruelly biased. How can I distance myself enough to be critical? There are unbearable tears and ambitious smiles. And then there is the deep fear of a supervisor versus the deep love of the author. I am shredded in the attempt to balance my love for you, and my inability to work on you. I am sorry Sylvie, I failed the supreme academic in you.

But in moments when you help sail my wobbliness in spite of sparking wires inside my head, and bring forth a mad articulation in stammers and whimpers, I understand we won together. For only mad women love each other in a way only they can understand, and only mad women survive the madness writing their way out. Your insanity tones down mine, your insanity keeps me sane. As I grope for meaning when I read you I fail to understand how you found any. Perhaps finally you didn't. Oh how you loved Sylvie! You created that brand called SPecial.

Do you miss this world? The agonies and ecstasies of love? Do you know I know you Sylvie? Course you do. We met in the Mirror.

With you,

K.