1.

What I am about to tell you may or may not matter in the long run.

2.

I have taken to alphabetizing the things in my kitchen. Thus colander next to coriander, dairy next to dishwashing liquid, ice next to insecticide. Anything can be held together by a web of associations: armoire to banister, by virtue of setting. Clavicle to daffodil, by family of sounds. Elephants to falafel because of that day in December, gash to harbor because of that summer with nothing better to do. Illicit to jeopardy, jeopardy to karma, karma to long life or lip service or manual labor, manual labor to never again, never again to on one condition to private practice to questionnaire. And so on. Anything is the truest beginning of what I am about to say.

3.

Words most probably included in what I am about to tell you: accept, again, alcohol, apparently, bakery, be, because, blue, bordering, come, company, continuous, crap, dashboard, definitely, don’t, drawer, end, enough, exactly, fantasy, forget, haha, how, hydrangeas, ink, insult, maybe, modern, more, must, nerve, never, no, of, period, phone, please, psycho, ridiculous, ring, slab, sleeping, sorry, splat, stash, teeth, television, tender, then, there, this, though, thus, very, wtf, yes.

4.

What I am about to say may be said in other words, and these words may be divided into several categories resembling a system of looking at flies: a) detached, with a hint of disdain, b) obligatory, c) doubt replaced by candor, d) having slipped from one room to another, e) borrowed from the library, f) a subcategory of c), g) that which replays itself, h) without resignation.

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"Letter to the Stranger" is the result of an ongoing preoccupation with the alphabet.