i remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, you were talking so brave and so sweet/giving me head on the unmade bed as the limousines wait in the street. but those were the reasons and that was New York
There were places in this story that felt like they were echoing Found Letters, almost as if both stories were moving through the same corridor. Letters keep appearing in your work, not always on paper, but as something carried between people. In Found Letters, it was the envelope that showed up too late, holding what one heart was still willing to remember. Here, it is scattered across the rooms. The phone call that felt like something trying to break through. The memory one person protected while the other quietly abandoned it. The unspoken words that wanted to be written, but never were.
It made me think how a letter is never just ink and paper. It is proof that something once mattered. And how two people can share the same moment, but only one carries it forward.
Maybe that is what ties your stories together. Beauty that knows it is dying, and still chooses to be beautiful.
This is a beautiful comment and so very helpful to me in my craft. It is interesting that when I am writing I am the conduit and I don't necessarily see or remember what is going on around me. When a close reader such as yourself takes the time to expand and explode what I have created it means I am seeing what I have made for the first time as a reader, not as the author.
It may not make much sense but I am flying without instruments here; aloft and alight through pure animal instinct.
I am grateful that you think so. if you can provide an e.g., so much the better. thanks for reading me and taking the time to comment/restack and like. <5
There’s something unmistakably felt in this, the way you let memory fracture into rooms, each one carrying its own temperature, its own damage, its own small tenderness. You write as if you’re walking back through a life that won’t quite let you settle, where the past keeps intruding in images and sensations rather than clear lines.
What stays with me is how human it all is: the longing, the loss, the quiet devotion, the grief that shows up in unexpected corners. You let the mess stand, and it gives the piece its honesty. I carried the weight of this long after reading.
I think I'm going to have to read this over again. Really well put together and I enjoyed every line. My takeaway is time doesn’t heal love. It only moves us from room to room, carrying the same open wound. Every door we close behind us is really just another place where the light still remembers our names. When you look back at those eight rooms now, which one still feels like it’s waiting for you to come home. Why do you think you keep the key?
I'm a sucker for layered stories complete with reoccurring visuals, themes, and emotions like descending a spiral staircase. This one has that in spades. Chests, the homes of our love and pain, the cold/ice blooms like unwanted weeds that are just accepted since there is no beating it. Anchoring the defining moments in the relationship with the eight rooms, each on the way down the spiral staircase of your story, each one a degradation of that first kiss given. And finally the letters. Am I off when I point out the line breaks make me think of those palm sized letter openers? I’m all to familiar their cold hidden blade on the edge of a heartless cleavage or “feed slot”. I like it all!
hi you. so good: that was my favorite part of the work to write and re-read after. Real dream, real chicken scratch notes taken from my bedside upon waking. thank you for liking the part I like best. I appreciate you.
There were places in this story that felt like they were echoing Found Letters, almost as if both stories were moving through the same corridor. Letters keep appearing in your work, not always on paper, but as something carried between people. In Found Letters, it was the envelope that showed up too late, holding what one heart was still willing to remember. Here, it is scattered across the rooms. The phone call that felt like something trying to break through. The memory one person protected while the other quietly abandoned it. The unspoken words that wanted to be written, but never were.
It made me think how a letter is never just ink and paper. It is proof that something once mattered. And how two people can share the same moment, but only one carries it forward.
Maybe that is what ties your stories together. Beauty that knows it is dying, and still chooses to be beautiful.
This is a beautiful comment and so very helpful to me in my craft. It is interesting that when I am writing I am the conduit and I don't necessarily see or remember what is going on around me. When a close reader such as yourself takes the time to expand and explode what I have created it means I am seeing what I have made for the first time as a reader, not as the author.
It may not make much sense but I am flying without instruments here; aloft and alight through pure animal instinct.
I thank you for your time and for your service.
Something special here.
I am grateful that you think so. if you can provide an e.g., so much the better. thanks for reading me and taking the time to comment/restack and like. <5
There’s something unmistakably felt in this, the way you let memory fracture into rooms, each one carrying its own temperature, its own damage, its own small tenderness. You write as if you’re walking back through a life that won’t quite let you settle, where the past keeps intruding in images and sensations rather than clear lines.
What stays with me is how human it all is: the longing, the loss, the quiet devotion, the grief that shows up in unexpected corners. You let the mess stand, and it gives the piece its honesty. I carried the weight of this long after reading.
“The first kiss was like that. It was given. Everything since has been taken away.” really captured me. I read that over several times.
I think I'm going to have to read this over again. Really well put together and I enjoyed every line. My takeaway is time doesn’t heal love. It only moves us from room to room, carrying the same open wound. Every door we close behind us is really just another place where the light still remembers our names. When you look back at those eight rooms now, which one still feels like it’s waiting for you to come home. Why do you think you keep the key?
Faulkner with the compression of Emily Dickinson, wonderful poetry turned into prose.
I'm a sucker for layered stories complete with reoccurring visuals, themes, and emotions like descending a spiral staircase. This one has that in spades. Chests, the homes of our love and pain, the cold/ice blooms like unwanted weeds that are just accepted since there is no beating it. Anchoring the defining moments in the relationship with the eight rooms, each on the way down the spiral staircase of your story, each one a degradation of that first kiss given. And finally the letters. Am I off when I point out the line breaks make me think of those palm sized letter openers? I’m all to familiar their cold hidden blade on the edge of a heartless cleavage or “feed slot”. I like it all!
At five o'clock (in the morning, EET)
I'm drinking my first coffee.
I wanted to read something relaxing after a beautiful evening with my son.
I spent my night on the balcony with two packs of cigarettes.
I want more!
hi you. so good: that was my favorite part of the work to write and re-read after. Real dream, real chicken scratch notes taken from my bedside upon waking. thank you for liking the part I like best. I appreciate you.