Hey.

I just got a package from Devon.

It's addressed to Erin Webb, which I'm not used to, and it's called "A Puzzle of Lost Girls." I'm desperately afraid. Or, well. Not afraid, exactly-- but the kind of sad calm when there's something to be afraid of.

It's a video tape, accompanied by a letter, and the letter speaks of the past like some distant thing. And the past is a distant thing. We're no longer what we were, and that's true. I know that. I know I am disbanded, I know I've fallen out, away, each member of my band hardened.

They're writing books about the way things used to be.

--David Dykes says it's unhealthy to quote your own poetry, but I can't help it. If I didn't feel it, I wouldn't have said it in the first place, and it's still true.

But listen. We're never what we were. We made a snowman, together, last winter, and this one. And they were different because everything's different always. I understand how things work. How time works. I understand the distance. Like I said, y'know-- I feel skinny in my life now.

But I want you to know that I don't feel sad when I think about you. A little shunted, sometimes, and a lot shameful. But I feel the stories a whole lot more than I feel their endings.

And I mean, hell. I'm younger than the youngest member of *nsync. Goodbyes should mean fuck-nothing to us.

And . . I'm probably way blowing this out of its water. This tape is probably about muppets or something. Maybe I just see closure everywhere.

And it's not like I disagree with it, anyway. I just wanted you to know. I feel you. Forever.

I was talking to Logan this morning, and he said that cliches become cliches 'cause they're true.

Just go watch the damn tape, Ale.

Yeah. Yeah, okay.

Tell them you love them.

They know.

Yeah, they do. Wasn't that the point you were making? Couldn't you just have said that and saved all this space?

Guess so. But I'm not a space-saver. I'm a writer.

Everybody's a writer, doll.

Yeah, well. I'm also a Lost Girl.

Very cute, babbo.

I'm going now.

--Sure you don't want to talk about Logan some more?

Oh, fuck off.

Say goodbye, Alestar.

No.

***
--A
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