Dear Stranger

This site has grown out of a project that I’ve been playing with over the last couple of years. It’s ever changing, because life is ever changing, and this project is really just about life. It’s about people, it’s about the connections we make, and those we just miss. I don’t know where this project is going, but I know where it started, and that’s here, with this letter to a stranger:

Dear Stranger,

This book is a collection of things left unsaid.
A book of regrets, perhaps.
This book is a collection of all the little things that were at the tip of your tongue
but you didn’t say until it was too late;
he had already closed the door behind him,
gotten on the bus to San Francisco,
forgotten your name.

Once a person is gone from your life all of those things
that you didn’t let yourself say out loud stick with you.
Stick to you. Those words become secrets that you’ll never be able to tell.
Because the one person in the world who you needed to hear them
isn’t there to listen, or to respond.
Those conversations that you avoided play on in your head,
but you’ve got the voices all wrong.
He was never so shrill. You were never so clear.

Waiting for a train you absentmindedly go over all the ways
you might have put that one question to get the answer
that you wanted to hear…
Or maybe you’re just practicing saying, “I love you”,
so that next time you’ll be sure to get it right.