To the first boy I loved,

To the first boy I loved,

I am going to explain myself to you. I am going to split the skin of my stomach into halves, pull those halves apart, and expose the truth, which is red meat and a heart beat. There’s something picturesque about spilling your guts and something violent too. I will try to explain myself to you.

I want to be art. That’s sort of my thing. I’ve not yet tired of the phrase, though I fear many who surround me have. I can talk ears away from the heads that carry them. We both know that. I want to be art. It occurs to me that you may be the only person who understands what I mean by that: I want to be art. I have told you, Ars long, vita brevis. In English, I have told you, Art is long, life is short. I worry that I have corrupted you or am corrupting you. I worry that in showing you more of myself, I make you cynical or sad. I myself can be both in turn, but I don’t want that for you. I can’t ask that for you. That phrase of mine was supposed to be a disclaimer of sorts, like a bright yellow frog announces its poison. I want to be art means I don’t know how to be anything else. Writing you a letter is my way of apologizing, and I am sorry, but not sorry enough.

You are beautiful when you smile at me. I should have told you that back when you still loved me, but staring at you is like looking into the dark eyes of the Mona Lisa, with her coy Etruscan smile. No one calls the Mona Lisa beautiful to her face. It is only afterward, when one leaves the museum, perhaps lying in bed, or on a park bench, or in the gutter, that one thinks she is something beautiful, that one remembers her eyes and her smile, without adverb, as more than eyes and more than smile. The Mona Lisa is most beautiful in retrospect. Someday, I may tell you that you are beautiful to your face, and you will not believe me, but I will mean it even after everything, because of everything, and it will be true if only in retrospect. A long time ago, you might have said something like, Not as beautiful as you, and I wouldn’t have disagreed. How could I, looking into your dark eyes, that coy Etruscan smile? Mona Lisa boy, you have to understand, when art calls you art, you nod and accept.

There’s something to be said for the sum of parts. Back to looking at the Mona Lisa, seeing the shading, the lines, the influence, seeing the divine within the artistry. Da Vinci, you have really outdone yourself. You also see her as a person, and you think you might know her. Seeing the curve of her jaw, you think she is strong-willed and serene. You think she is a force to be reckoned with, and, still, she looks altogether average. So that is what she is: A painting or a person, depending on the lens through which she is viewed. Most prefer the physical, to admire the little brush strokes that make her, to appreciate the artistry. We separate ourselves from the woman above the brush strokes. Even in writing this, I am separating myself from you. I am turning you into brush strokes, but it’s all about the lens. I try to leave my glasses at home. I’ve heard it’s bad for your eyes to focus on the brush strokes, to wear glasses you don’t really need. I know now that you are not a painting, but once I read you like a poem in a person.

Mona Lisa boy, I wanted to immortalize you. You were a poem in a person; you were a painting on the wall; you belonged in a museum. Every letter I write tastes like Earth. Every sentence gets the shovel a little deeper in the dirt. Three feet. Four feet. Five feet. Six. Every period, another nail in your coffin. I still want to immortalize you, but by now I know better. Poetry preserves like the ancient Egyptians. It hollows you out, puts your heart in a box, pulls your brain through your nose with a curved hook. It makes you a feather on a scale, beautiful, unrecognizable. You wanted me to love you, but I tried to bury you instead. I can’t blame you for leaving. Nobody wants to be mummified.

I’m sorry,

Sara