November 6, 2002
Kelsi
Do you know what I have to say about this?
That you are an exemplary person. That you have helped me to become the person I am, that you have both shaped and helped to stabilize these lopsided scales. I didn't have a sister in another life. I have a sister in this one.
Who is Kelsi? Kelsi is a brilliant writer. Kelsi writes songs about nothing with more meaning than my songs about something. She is not like you, and though she used to be like me, she no longer is. I have changed, and she has changed. She has become an exotic angel, a bird whose feathers were not made for these harsh winds, whose wings once pillowed on foreign, alien airs.
We can't force you to stay with us, Kels, to humour us. But we can love you. And we do, we wholeheartedly do.
How long has it been since we both had a nice long cry, sitting on the edge of the carnivorous waterbed? How long since we sang together in disharmony and sometimes surprising harmony? How long since garish costumes and gel pens and notebooks fat full with dreaming?
I've realized that the dream is everyday, Kels. We think about the future now, but four years ago this was the future. This was the dream. Maybe it's changed in form, but in spirit? Everyday we wake up with our make believe people in our heads, and they keep us better company than the real ones. It doesn't mean we're strange or insane. It means we're realists and idealists and romantics and writers.
All the things in between don't matter. Because if there is that, if only in the smallest portion, isn't it worth it? We have eyes that no one else possesses. We are transitive and powerful and immortal.
I wouldn't be who I am without you, Kelsi. We've been so serious and so silly. You are my sister, and I love you.
astera at 3:09 p.m.