Sarah Lang: For Tamara
Considering how important generators are, / you’d be surprised at how poorly they’re drawn. / I’m talking magnets and copper wire.
Tamara, apparently don’t throw out your textbooks. / I’m running out of advice. / You’re going to be better at this than I.
One of the most difficult things to learn is to be happy for someone else. To let go. There is nothing I wouldn’t do, but damn, this is a hard place to be in. / You will be okay. / We are making this life. / I learned to set a dislocated shoulder. / I have no idea why I still feel guilty, / or sad. / It isn’t even that I can’t get over you: / but how to could they compare. / You remember, as I told you: / the first time I saw you I thought: this is what I have been waiting for.
We used to have this idea of a house. / Did you know your Mum can make perfume? / I just want to back to that idea, / memory.
Your grandfather raised me as a vegetarian. / But not as a stupid one. / Eat your dinner, / meat and all.
Yes, your Mum has a sensitivity to light & so many allergies. / I hope you’ll grow up to be so much stronger.
There is so much water in this world, / as in you. / We barely have the clinic running. / We have to start producing antibiotics.
Oh the world I would make for you. / It still wouldn’t be good enough.
Bad things will happen to you. / Just know they happened to me too; / and I’m still here.
A few days before this / I argued w/yr Father about leaving (again). / Love someone for who they are. / That was part of who he was, is. / To deny that part of him would have been cruel. / And yes, I miss My Beautiful Idiot.
Make sure you sleep. / If you go w/o long enough you’ll hallucinate. / Paranoia. / Anxiety. / Mood swings. / Inability to function.
Tamara, if you ever find your Dad. / Tell him I loved him best.
No, My Husband / here with our girl. / To think I used to have break-
fast in bed / every day. / Before this we were picking out faucets. “I’m only going for a week.” / Now: all the faucets I want. / Home: / where you aren’t scared.
In my 20s, on a train. / This city glimmering before me, / & for me. / “This is for you.” / Let’s play. / We laughed, that game with the button.
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