Pauline
Dear Pauline
merritt kopas
“AM I IN LOVE? Y E S, S I N C E I A M WA I T I N G . THE OTHER ONE NEVER W A I T S . SOMETIMES I WANT TO PLAY T H E PA R T O F THE ONE WHO DOESN'T WAIT; I TRY TO BUSY M Y S E L F
ELSEWHERE, TO ARRIVE L AT E ; B U T I A LWAY S L O S E AT TH IS GAME. W H AT E V E R I DO, I FIND M Y S E L F THERE, WITH NOTHING TO DO, PUNCTUAL, EVEN AHEAD OF TIME. THE
LOVER'S FATAL IDENTITY IS P R E C I S E LY THIS: I AM THE ONE WHO WAITS.” - R O L A N D BARTHES, A L O V E R ' S DISCOURSE: FRAGM ENTS
Dear Pauline, It feels so strange to write you. I don't know that I've ever said your name aloud, and I've certainly never written it. And yet, you've been a presence in my life for so long. You've hung over my love, over everything, everywhere -- but always out of reach. How many times have I turned a corner imagining that we might finally chance a meeting? How many times, over all those years, did I hear him mur mur your name in his sleep?
You are a ghost to me, as I imagine I am to you. Yet now there is little for me but ghosts, and so I reach out to you. Hoping for what -- I'm not sure. I do not know if this letter will reach you, in both the literal and figurative sense. Regardless, I am here, and I hope, and that hope compels me to reach. Yours, ~P
Dear Pauline, I have often wondered: were you char med when he braved countless hazards to rescue you? Did your breath quicken as he fought with your captor? Did you come to enjoy all of it, come to see it as a wonderful game with you at its centre? And if so, when did you tire of it?
I can't pinpoint the moment that things changed for me. It was so enjoyable for so long -of course it was, else I never would have let it go on as it did.
Of course, people began to talk. The first time, it was a tragedy. The second, a grim farce. The third? The fourth? The countless others? It became perverse routine. Rumours spread that there was something wrong with me, that I lacked some critical faculty or another that I should allow myself to be placed in jeopardy so easily and so frequently. Naturally, the motivations of the one who put me in jeopardy again and again went unremarked upon. They do not love us, Pauline. We must love one another. ~P
Dear Pauline, What has become of you? There are so few of us. The others I see only on occasion, at parties or athletic outings. But you are never there. What sin have you committed that you should be banished from the world? There have been times -- very infrequently -- when he has left for some span of time on a feigned excuse, and I know he has gone to see you. Is your absence simply the result of the unfaithful but prudent man's desire to keep his mistress apart from his wife? Were that the case I would not hold you blameworthy. You have so little; it would be cruel of me to deny you this. But I feel something more sinister in your absence. The lack of you began to claw at me. I sought out details about your existence. I found little, but what I did find only increased my curiosity — and, if I am to be honest — my infatuation. The idea of you began to consume me. The rational part of me knows that we cannot — must not — ever meet. But another, more passionate part rails against the injustice of this state. ~P
Dear Pauline, As I look back it strikes me that we made the best of our brutally unfair situations. Do you know, Pauline, that for the longest time, I was refused the dignity of even a name? I was a title, a function, a prop. Of course, in this I am not alone. I know that you were, from the beginning, simply, cruelly, known as 'Lady.'
This is all we are to them, Pauline: a lady, a princess. Stripped bare to our bodies, our -- in their minds -mysterious, essential natures fixing us as objects. He did not have his name back then either, but what he was known as at least suggested some measure of agency, of ability. What possible course of action could 'lady' or ' p r i n c e s s ' s u g g e s t bu t waiting? ~P
Dear Pauline, I cannot stand this any longer. Today I leave — not as another’s captive, but of my own accord. He will pursue me, certainly — first, under the mistaken assumption that I have fallen into peril yet again, and then, more furiously, when he realizes that this leaving is final. I am beyond caring. Nothing he could do could sink him lower in my estimation. I have seen his true face, and it is more terrifying than any evil I have known. It is blank.
Within him lies deadness and air, his body a shell piloted about by some unseen ghost whose motives are utterly inscrutable. I know how this must sound: like I am going mad, or else inventing fanciful tales to add colour to the dreary monotony of court life. I assure you that this is not the case. But then, I feel that you of all people should require the least convincing. I do not know how I will find you. But I have faith, and the thought of you will lighten my steps. Yours, ~P
Dear Pauline, If you see any ghosts, be careful. They will give chase if you turn away. I have enclosed a jewel that helps protect you. ~P
2015
merritt kopas
“AM I IN LOVE? Y E S, S I N C E I A M WA I T I N G . THE OTHER ONE NEVER W A I T S . SOMETIMES I WANT TO PLAY T H E PA R T O F THE ONE WHO DOESN'T WAIT; I TRY TO BUSY M Y S E L F
ELSEWHERE, TO ARRIVE L AT E ; B U T I A LWAY S L O S E AT TH IS GAME. W H AT E V E R I DO, I FIND M Y S E L F THERE, WITH NOTHING TO DO, PUNCTUAL, EVEN AHEAD OF TIME. THE
LOVER'S FATAL IDENTITY IS P R E C I S E LY THIS: I AM THE ONE WHO WAITS.” - R O L A N D BARTHES, A L O V E R ' S DISCOURSE: FRAGM ENTS
Dear Pauline, It feels so strange to write you. I don't know that I've ever said your name aloud, and I've certainly never written it. And yet, you've been a presence in my life for so long. You've hung over my love, over everything, everywhere -- but always out of reach. How many times have I turned a corner imagining that we might finally chance a meeting? How many times, over all those years, did I hear him mur mur your name in his sleep?
You are a ghost to me, as I imagine I am to you. Yet now there is little for me but ghosts, and so I reach out to you. Hoping for what -- I'm not sure. I do not know if this letter will reach you, in both the literal and figurative sense. Regardless, I am here, and I hope, and that hope compels me to reach. Yours, ~P
Dear Pauline, I have often wondered: were you char med when he braved countless hazards to rescue you? Did your breath quicken as he fought with your captor? Did you come to enjoy all of it, come to see it as a wonderful game with you at its centre? And if so, when did you tire of it?
I can't pinpoint the moment that things changed for me. It was so enjoyable for so long -of course it was, else I never would have let it go on as it did.
Of course, people began to talk. The first time, it was a tragedy. The second, a grim farce. The third? The fourth? The countless others? It became perverse routine. Rumours spread that there was something wrong with me, that I lacked some critical faculty or another that I should allow myself to be placed in jeopardy so easily and so frequently. Naturally, the motivations of the one who put me in jeopardy again and again went unremarked upon. They do not love us, Pauline. We must love one another. ~P
Dear Pauline, What has become of you? There are so few of us. The others I see only on occasion, at parties or athletic outings. But you are never there. What sin have you committed that you should be banished from the world? There have been times -- very infrequently -- when he has left for some span of time on a feigned excuse, and I know he has gone to see you. Is your absence simply the result of the unfaithful but prudent man's desire to keep his mistress apart from his wife? Were that the case I would not hold you blameworthy. You have so little; it would be cruel of me to deny you this. But I feel something more sinister in your absence. The lack of you began to claw at me. I sought out details about your existence. I found little, but what I did find only increased my curiosity — and, if I am to be honest — my infatuation. The idea of you began to consume me. The rational part of me knows that we cannot — must not — ever meet. But another, more passionate part rails against the injustice of this state. ~P
Dear Pauline, As I look back it strikes me that we made the best of our brutally unfair situations. Do you know, Pauline, that for the longest time, I was refused the dignity of even a name? I was a title, a function, a prop. Of course, in this I am not alone. I know that you were, from the beginning, simply, cruelly, known as 'Lady.'
This is all we are to them, Pauline: a lady, a princess. Stripped bare to our bodies, our -- in their minds -mysterious, essential natures fixing us as objects. He did not have his name back then either, but what he was known as at least suggested some measure of agency, of ability. What possible course of action could 'lady' or ' p r i n c e s s ' s u g g e s t bu t waiting? ~P
Dear Pauline, I cannot stand this any longer. Today I leave — not as another’s captive, but of my own accord. He will pursue me, certainly — first, under the mistaken assumption that I have fallen into peril yet again, and then, more furiously, when he realizes that this leaving is final. I am beyond caring. Nothing he could do could sink him lower in my estimation. I have seen his true face, and it is more terrifying than any evil I have known. It is blank.
Within him lies deadness and air, his body a shell piloted about by some unseen ghost whose motives are utterly inscrutable. I know how this must sound: like I am going mad, or else inventing fanciful tales to add colour to the dreary monotony of court life. I assure you that this is not the case. But then, I feel that you of all people should require the least convincing. I do not know how I will find you. But I have faith, and the thought of you will lighten my steps. Yours, ~P
Dear Pauline, If you see any ghosts, be careful. They will give chase if you turn away. I have enclosed a jewel that helps protect you. ~P
2015
