dear THE KEEPER,

my old entrance to the world is overgrown. it has been hurriedly, haphazardly crossed out by the ink of the moving seasons. i always assumed they had gone around and around, holding the hands of the clock. but now, I sincerely believe that every season whom knocks on our doors is a distinct persona. each with their own piercing smells, embroidery of clouds; the angle of their unexpected downpours – we have held months long conversations with a village. i should learn their names. 

my old entrance to the world is still barely visible. it has formed cracks that you can trace your likeness in. i haven’t dared to try and reenter. i assured you, earnestly, that i would always follow your succinct advice. “the past is as real as your death,” though I struggled with this sentiment for what felt like eons after our last meeting, i have now found it to be a grounding force in my world. i haven’t dared to try and reenter, because it would not only be daft to do so, but it would ensure it remains closed eternally.

i still reminisce about my old entrance to the world. at first, i held you in the putrid cell of highest reprimand for amputating such a sticky part of me. my inaugural grand loss in life was the tree i had often scaled as a boy. i heard the distant shriek of the chainsaw pour like a stodgy, unwanted soup into my window one night – i suppose it was the autumn of [redacted]? the next day it was a flat stump. i had thought about mirroring it with my own limbs, what was the use? it always had shone like a shy, soaring angel in the snowfall. that following winter, it was a sorry pile of sugar. i’d rather they had left nothing at all of it. cremation is not preferable to burial, that being said.

but i am glad, so glad – that you decided to leave me a shred of my old entrance. it doesn’t taunt me, it doesn’t even beckon to me. its relative distance remains as firm as the muddy banks of the river that jogs alongside it. it won’t change for me. but it will change.

yours nearly, 

anti citizen one