Dear Wigleaf,

After summer fell apart, I spent every day watching the water drip off of the stove. When you were here before, we were gentle only to prove we could be. I thought you would like to know that I have re-painted your old bedroom and color-coordinated the drawers. At night the rain comes, but no storms yet. Someone once told me I am most tender when I am silent. Sometimes I imagine my life as something that has nothing to do with me.

Do you agree with that? The silence thing, I mean. Think of writing back, even if you have nothing to say. I write to you because I'm the sort of person that thinks just because I can't see something, it's not there. Are you now the sort of person who thinks the rain is a metaphor for everything that goes unsaid? Oh, Wigleaf. In the absence of goodness, you were always kind. In the absent, measured place where you once were, and now no longer are, I have placed a statue of a you-sized emptiness. It's meant to be a temporary measure. One of these days, I plan, for you, to write a poem so big it can fit the both of us. I want there to be air inside of it, holes punched out so we can breathe. I want it to be a room, so you can stand up and walk across it.

Take care, Hannah