she's the salt of the 🌏 and she's dangerous

Beloved.

I write to you on a cloudy day, with a pizza in the oven. Pepperoni, not my favorite, but I'll manage.

I write to you on a day when the world stood still and the grass fed grief was still fresh.

I write to you because I miss you.

When I sat in a Starbucks and typed nonny nonny non to keep my brain from considering the obvious.

The pressing. The night before.

You cried in my arms like I had cried on the phone with you.

You were always the strong one.

You're older, you've seen more.

In that moment I had to be as unyielding as wall.

I had to keep the ship afloat.

I needed you to smile, needed you to laugh.

Just so that I could see that you were okay.

Even if you weren't.

Your smile hit like lighting on a tree.

Even if it wasn't real.

...

What are you worried about? You asked me.

I was beyond help because I was beyond helping myself.

No one believed in me before there was you.

Your arms kept me afloat when you hugged me.

How was I suppossed to be the anchor?

I couldn't keep you afloat. I wasn't capable.

But you held on to me anyway.

Any time I am lost or hopeless, I think of you.

You are always one of my first calls.

You were the reason I stuck it out. Not just because of yout tenacity.

Because of your Grace.

Because of you Weakness.

Because of your Vulnerability.

Because when I said I can't you said I could, why couldn't you?

When I first met you, I thought you were one of the strangest people I'd ever met...

Your heart was too open and your intentions were too pure and your love was too real and and and

I looked for the fault

You had to be a pushover

You had to be a Pollyanna

You had to be a person I'd love to hate.

Because I was so in the habit of looking for the worst in people.

But you proved yourself to be tough as nails

Tough as teflon

Tough as a mother

But with the bravery to say NO.

To say THAT'S WRONG.

To say, I don't give a fuck if you don't give a fuck, I GIVE A FUCK!

Your strength and your tender were not seperate entities

You were a synonymous engima

Sans ACT words, you were the strongest bitch I know.

Past tense, present tense, future tense.

You are the strongest bitch I know

You will be the strongest bitch I know

You will always be the baddest, the best, the messiest, the...

the...

the...

I can't find the words all the time.

But you're precious to me.

...

I think of you and I think of Ophelia's "mad" scene in Hamlet.

We are to believe she is mad, she is crazy, she is broken.

She is beyond reach.

But she speaks in a language all her own.

Her words transcend human understanding, just like her grief.

Grief is a creature that cannot be translated,

as you and I know so well.

I think of you as I think of Ophelia clutching her flowers and screaming through her teeth,

It is through her grief that she finds her strength-

Through the lullabies and nonsense words she finally says her piece

through her grief she is the most tenacious.

And nobody in the castle can understand her pain,

but we do.

Oh, God, do we understand.

...

It doesn't surprise me that you played Ophelia.

Only certain people can match her depth.

You are one of those people.

...

you'll be my first call when I book Ophelia.

someday.

...

in the meantime,

my pepperoni pizza is ready.

All my love,

eLa