today is my first girlfriend’s birthday

have i always been lucky in love?

yes but it never felt like it.

usually i wanted more. especially when i was young, i felt alone. i felt like everything was a long distance relationship.

back then you had to pay actual money to make long distance phone calls. major props to my mom for paying those crazy phone bills. major love to the post office for sending my little missives.

back then there werent blogs or email or even electricity so you would whisper something into the ear of an indian and he would ride his horse to the next state over and whisper it into the ear of the next indian who would ride his pony to the next state. and so on and so on.

finally when the last indian got to the pretty girl he would dance your message to her and she would hopefully understand every word and the spaces inbetween.

it was called the tony express.

mary was taller than me and smarter and softer and cooler and she would write actual letters

on stationary. in different colored pens. and cool envelopes.

every day we would write and confess our love even though we didn’t truly know what love was technically. we were teens. we were so midwestern. we were so wanting to live the california life.

first her. then me.

but never we.

not out here at least. not for any period of time more than a few days.

so i sent her a bear. and in the arms of the bear was a cub.

and in the cub was a piece of my heart.

and back then the indians would charge extra for shit like that.

but i had extra.

Leave a Reply