A slow letter, cedar smoke, rain

Midnight in New Orleans. The flat smells of cedar and oversteeped tea; a scratched Nina Simone record spins while I stir a rosemary-honey toddy. The sax outside reads like punctuation, and it makes my pen misbehave.

I sent a long, careful note tonight—questions, boundaries, tiny maps—because slow correspondence is the prelude I trust. Asking permission like a poem feels like the truest kind of flirting; if you ever read one of my novels and told me what failed, that honesty would be the kindest invitation.