hi, how are you? i have a headache —
so began most of the letters i wrote through high school, and so began my recurring need for acetaminophen, which was later replaced with ibuprofen.
i would begin my letters this way regardless of whether i actually had a headache. it became routine. i assumed i had a headache. youth gave me a headache. i was a sensitive adolescent prone to psychosomatic ailments. i kept myself focused on a headache, real or imagined; it was the natural companion to a melancholy disposition.
my friends and i wrote each other letters during study periods, to pass the time mostly, as we couldn’t always hide in the soundproof piano booth to sing queen, or sneak out in the dead of winter to smoke cigarettes at la brioche dorée. there was something about our correspondence that went beyond the words in our mouths. our letters were sentences upon sentences of swirls and arrows, seamlessly braiding english and french. in this hybrid language filled with secrets, headaches and bad puns, my friends expressed themselves beautifully…
hover through the fog and filthy air
(over troo de fogue hand filty hair)
…and i learned proper pronunciation.