Article by Margot Swetich and Mira Springer Art by Mira Springer
Dear Hermia,
Fuck Demitius. Fuck Lysander. It’s you and me, bitch. When we travel from place to place, tote bag and backpack, jackets and suitcases, we are one person with four hands carrying everything. My favorite sound is making you laugh. Can we keep playing for a while?
Sincerely,
Helena
***
Dear Helena,
It seems to me that we were always on a path toward one another. Every coincidence, every fated moment was just a method for the universe to buy the two of us some time. Time spinning in each other’s magnetic fields, time in each other’s beds, curled up against a world that was hurting us, time to play like jesters and find out how far our imaginations could stretch. We were inevitable, I think — that’s why we met the moment we both came to this strange and mythical place. We were bound to one another by something more real than anything that our outstretched hands could touch.
Best wishes,
Hermia
***
Dear Hermia,
You tell me that your body is becoming your mother’s body. But to me, it’s just your body, caressed by evening light from my window. You make me less afraid of femininity.
Tenderly,
Helena
***
Dear Helena,
Sometimes I remember the time when we were torn asunder, twin cherries plucked and left to rot, and it seems very clear to me that I never could have lived without you. Those months were far too long. I’m sorry that I needed to almost lose you to learn that I can’t stand to be without you. I want to watch you smile and to write you letters and to make you laugh forever.
Warmly,
Hermia
***
Dear Hermia
I wonder how younger versions of ourselves would have felt about each other. As children, I feel certain we would have been best friends. As middle or high schoolers, we might have disliked each other. I feel lucky that we met when we did, that our differences are what make knowing and knowing and knowing you so interesting. I get to keep learning to love you better.
With love,
Helena
***
Dear Helena,
I felt so relieved when you called our love ancient after we spent some time apart. We have grown out of necessity, both of us, to love each other better. It’s my great horror that one Lysander or another turned me against you when they have all been nothing in comparison to you. Sorry, Shakespeare dear, but none of that was true love; this is. Just you and me, bitch. Strong and stubborn and endless.
Yours,
Hermia
***
Dear Hermia,
Our love story wasn’t the most obvious part of the plot, but it’s there, a hidden string running underneath everything else.
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate.
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene II)
The thread is loose, but only because we’re working at it from two needles. We’re not done weaving it in yet.
Yours,
Helena