11/23/31

Dear Alex,

Remember when you leaned in my car window, after hopping out and blurted “if you want to kiss me sometime I would happily do that” before skipping hurriedly off, not looking back, your hair bobbing down and up like a little brown-bird.  I can imagine how your heart was lodged in your throat.  

I still wish I could have said yes.  

I loved the way you skipped across fields, even as it annoyed me and left me feeling exquisitely ornery and slowly old.  

You made me want to shout “just walk in a straight line and don’t go flying off like a space exploration after every glittering dragonfly and new forest path.”  

You have so much to teach me about fun.  I whole-heartedly believe that.  

“Kyu, why are you following the sidwalk?  Kyu, I want to go on an adventure. Kyu, let’s jump on the river rocks.”

But of course I had to say no.  

Because every time we met for coffee I would tell you about the pain I saw in your eyes.  You always seemed half-surprised, as if your soul knew even if your thoughts spun above it like a thick kaleidoscope.  

I can’t count the number of times you would walk, quite regally, into tree-branches, signs, and strangers in public.    

There was always a problem and I was always too happy to offer a solution.  That was our little codependent dance—you would be the patient, I would be the therapist. You would be the questioner, I would be the answerer.  That’s no way to be.  

I’m sorry little bird.  

-Kyu

[Reader, you have gained The Memory of Love: if/when you read the phrase “The Dream has shattered,” you may disregard it and return to 0-Square, which can be thought of as a rebirth tile.]

Currently, go to 3 Square, where the snake approaches Alex.]