@crueless. sure, we invent each other. we agreed to that a long time ago.
mabel, mabel: do you know that i got so in the habit of addressing all my thoughts down the phoneline to you all that time ago that you’re still the you of my internal monologue? you stick in my thoughts like honey. even when i am not speaking at all, i am always speaking to you. always inventing you. oh, if i were to say this aloud mabel would make this face, say this in response: i know i could never capture you so completely, and i wouldn’t want to, but i think i know you well enough to get it right at least half the time.
is it awful to say that talking to you kept me sane? back before i knew anything about anything — when this was, for all intents and purposes, a normal house with a harmless old woman in it. god, i was stupid. naive. the whole time you were — were trapped there, and i was venting into your voicemail about ... weeds in the garden, or sally’s stair lift breaking. i don’t even remember what i talked about, really. it can’t be more than a year ago, can it, but it feels like eternity. this house unravels you. i’ve done enough purposeful unraveling of myself by now to know the feeling, i’ve come undone so many times since then, but — it’s a different kind, you know?
i didn’t even know you, and you kept me whole. i didn’t know you, but it felt like i did — like i’ve known you all along. maybe that was the you i invented, the you i dreamt about before i’d ever seen your face anywhere but sunbleached photographs on the mantle, always half a moment from falling into the fireplace and being consumed. always half-burning, even then.
‘ please. like i could ever invent something half as real as you. ’ in my invented-you, my imagined-you, there was always such unfathomable distance. i was talking to you but i knew you would never respond, i knew you were too far away for something as ordinary as conversation. the real you, the one in front of me — the you who’s screwing her nose up like you’ve got some big opinions on whatever i’m about to say, and don’t you always? — you’re always so close. i could be halfway across the world and still feel you beside me, still smile at you the way i am now.
‘ a thousand annas with a thousand rusty typewriters could never create you, you know. i think you’re too much of yourself to ever have let me have a hand in making you. ’
