The Pink Collection #1 - L'hôtel Montesquieu
Dear Button,
It is now four weeks since I arrived in Lyon and despite my best efforts I have found very little trace of you. I've tried everything, from following the trail of bureaucracy you left behind, to passing hours sitting outside a certain café I was told you enjoyed, to climbing the eight hundred steps to the top of Fourviere and screaming your name out over the city. I am ashamed to say I even entered the basilica, offered up a candle to the Virgin Mary, and for the first time in my life I prayed. All I got for my troubles was a speck of hot wax in my eye, and a waddle of worried looking Chinese tourists wondering if after I had finished screaming out your name would I throw myself a thousand feet down on top of my words. Maybe I wish I had... I do. But there I go again! Saying the things which probably drove you away in the first place. God, is France really preferable to me? I must be a rotten soul.
I heard from Scott yesterday and he says that you are not lost but gone. Of course that hurt and I tried all morning to hate him for it but couldn't. I suppose that really I know he's right, but I so wanted him to tell me something else... even if it was just an outright lie - I wouldn't have minded. Why is the truth always so depressing? I think also that Scott is relieved I'm all the way over here. No more smokey drunken nights, him staying up babysitting me and desperately trying not to fall asleep to my pitiful sobbing and sudden fits of desperation. The night before leaving I actually smashed a glass ashtray right into the side of my head. I wanted to somehow show him the hurt that was on the other side of my skin. But rather than get his sympathy I think it gave him a secret thrill, seeing the 'man who doesn't believe in love' swallowed up in her jaws and crushed just below the point of death. That's the worst thing about it... living on in excruciating pain. Fuck, I don't know! I am confused. I've lost my bearings and all the stabilizing factors that were in my life now seem all wibbly wobbly. I'm no longer sure if the next footstep will tramp me on to better days or send me crashing through the floorboards??? I'm lost, Button... I'm so completely fucking lost. My days now have more tears than anything else.
And so, in a final desperate bid to reach you, I send out this SOS and hope that by some miracle of wind it finds its way to your feet. I lay it here, outside L'Hôtel Montesquieu, your last known place of stay. If ever you do return... and if ever you find this letter and would like to tell me something in return, leave me a reply under the lion's left paw at the base of the King Louis XIV statue at Place Bellecour. I will visit often and I will come with hope. And when all hope is gone, I'll cover my eyes and pray. Hail Mary.
I heard from Scott yesterday and he says that you are not lost but gone. Of course that hurt and I tried all morning to hate him for it but couldn't. I suppose that really I know he's right, but I so wanted him to tell me something else... even if it was just an outright lie - I wouldn't have minded. Why is the truth always so depressing? I think also that Scott is relieved I'm all the way over here. No more smokey drunken nights, him staying up babysitting me and desperately trying not to fall asleep to my pitiful sobbing and sudden fits of desperation. The night before leaving I actually smashed a glass ashtray right into the side of my head. I wanted to somehow show him the hurt that was on the other side of my skin. But rather than get his sympathy I think it gave him a secret thrill, seeing the 'man who doesn't believe in love' swallowed up in her jaws and crushed just below the point of death. That's the worst thing about it... living on in excruciating pain. Fuck, I don't know! I am confused. I've lost my bearings and all the stabilizing factors that were in my life now seem all wibbly wobbly. I'm no longer sure if the next footstep will tramp me on to better days or send me crashing through the floorboards??? I'm lost, Button... I'm so completely fucking lost. My days now have more tears than anything else.
And so, in a final desperate bid to reach you, I send out this SOS and hope that by some miracle of wind it finds its way to your feet. I lay it here, outside L'Hôtel Montesquieu, your last known place of stay. If ever you do return... and if ever you find this letter and would like to tell me something in return, leave me a reply under the lion's left paw at the base of the King Louis XIV statue at Place Bellecour. I will visit often and I will come with hope. And when all hope is gone, I'll cover my eyes and pray. Hail Mary.
The carrier of disaster that I am,
Enola Gray. X
Enola Gray. X
