Dearest executioner,

 

In our last correspondence

You asked me “what I think”

Of what? Of everything

Of the assorted unfortunate occurrences

That led me to this predicament.

Looking upon the slobbering jaws of death with ease

I suppose you wanted to know

What was going through my mind.

“What do you think?” you asked.

“I don’t,” I replied.

But I have thought much since then

And so I choose to write to you again.

 

I think little of anybody and much of nobodies

I think thoughts over and over again

And curse myself for thinking what’s been thought before.

I think there’s no one to blame for the “situation,”

As you put it,

That’s befallen me.

But underneath all of that

I think it’s my own damn fault

That I’m still here.

 

I find places fascinating and people more so

I find myself in different places each and every day

I have never found myself in another person.

 

They baffle and bewitch me

And I love them for what they are

And I hate them for what they’re not

Systems of tissues strung together with

Sinew that breaks and binds and pulls them into different shapes

Distant from gods and monsters as they are

Close to puppets on strings

As all animals are

Flexible

Not twisted universally, but personally

I see no difference between the twisting vines and trees

And we

Them, rather.

I cannot count myself among them.

Last week’s events remind me of this.

 

I woke up on Tuesday and the sunlight fell across my face

It did not blind me, it was gentle

It was what woke me

It had alighted on the walls, the sheets, my body tangled up within them

I hated it and wished it would go away.

I wanted to write to you, to ask you if you had ever hated this way before

Then I remembered you’ve never hated anything

(Not even me)

Then I remembered you’ve never felt anything

And I wished to be you.

 

You know I chose my own name for a reason

But I never told you what that reason is.

“Lazarus” because I’ve died and been revived

(Never reborn)

And because I will someday die again.

Maybe not soon but you will do me in eventually

And when you do you will know who I was

And why I was him

And why I couldn’t be who you wanted me to be.

 

You might think it means something that I’m telling you this

Now, after everything that’s happened

But I beg you to believe me that it’s meaningless

There’s a rhyme and reason in this

Because you know I hate to repeat myself

And I knew you would want me to say something to you

And I feel as if I’ve already said everything else.

 

Perhaps there is nothing else to say.

 

If nothing else, I will see you soon

And then I will not see you at all

Or anything, or anyone.

Please don’t forget me.

Please let me go.

 

—    A condemned man who loves you terribly