Dear reader dearest inscrutable listener inscrutably harking or regrettably more likely not harking except in that chamber in me that posits you with me every moment I’m speaking or trying to speak
Dear reader who may or may not be with me I still remember how once you weren’t here at all so I’d make up a mythical listener and there were good sides to that because I myself could choose
the degree of your presence the level of your attention from zero to fifty but then before I knew it you were somehow actually with me though it’s still a mystery as to why you decided to join me
but mystery or not in another before I knew it the make-believe between us suddenly altered to your not being with me because if I thought of you paying attention too closely you’d daunt me
This far along though all that’s all over because if we’re together or not if you’re harking or not we’ve had our good times and bad and with whom after all have I passed more intimate hours
with whom communed more to whom given over more of the secrets I swore when they barbed me I’d keep to myself forever though I know now there’s never forever and know too dear reader
here with me in one way or another that there aren’t any mysteries I’d still care to conceal and as long as you’re there nose in a book at your end of the page I’ll keep scribbling at mine
