DEAR READER,

This is for you, Reader, because you won't, or can't, talk to me. It seems you've disappeared behind this heavy curtain which I'm not allowed to pull back. I sit on my hard wooden chair, in front of the curtain, with my hands in my lap, and picture what's behind it: a round cafe table with a white mug on top, holding a few grounds in a dried glaze of black coffee, and next to that, a needle stuck in a spool of yellow thread. There's an ashtray with ashes, no butts, and a chair, pulled out. You walked away from this table still smoking, down a long hallway with a worn linoleum floor. Posted at the end of the hall is a red sign, too small for me to read.

I wish for you. Wishing is the shimmer in my dull personality. It's my invention, and somewhere, at the end of my rope, it equals you. Are you okay? Where did you go? Tell me what's at the end of my sentence, and I'll tell you my secret: I don't know who you are. I know much less about you than you know about me, so I strip down, layer after layer, one abject self-disclosure after another, until I've stuffed this space between us with my stories. Panting love puppies run tiny circles inside my chest.

I want to be invisible the way that you are.

Camille