Focused on You

13 July 2021

Dear Lucas,

Yes, I know. How did I find out your name?

Look, I’m so sorry. I know this may sound a little strange. Part of me wonders if I should just leave this letter in the shadows, shutter off any attempts to approach you before I embarrass myself. I can’t help it, though. Like a moth drawn towards a beam of Klieg lights, I discovered that my entire being just has to hover around you. Ever since I saw your stunning hazel eyes in a post from 2017 on your blog “Frames”, they have been constantly playing in my mind like a slideshow.

Okay, so yes, I peeked at your online journal. So, sue me. I don’t think you can blame me, though. Curiosity killed the cat, so they say. What I know is that as soon as I saw the emerald green leather-textured header and the silver vine motif, I knew I had to see every single snapshot of those amber orbs, that I would give anything to make you smile even brighter than a photographer saying “Cheese”. I hope you allow me this flash of madness on my part.

Oh, I can’t believe I’ve written you this much without giving you a mental picture of me. My name is Anne Black. If that sounds familiar to you, that’s because Henry, the junior accountant assigned to audit your photography studio, is my subordinate in the firm. To be honest, Lucas, my days have always been just black and white: I wake up, eat the same overcooked porridge, go to work, and come home to the telly’s flickering images. Spotting your photo colorised my world, oh yes.

So, tell you what? The next time Henry comes over your atelier, I will accompany him. Who knows? Perhaps, once I’m in your field of vision, you might steal a regard my way. A girl can dream, right?

Hoping for your spotlight to be on me,

Anne

****

7 December 2021

Dear Lucas,

I’m still waiting for you, just so you know. No pressure, though. Perhaps, like one of those old timey film reels, your courage to talk to me takes time to develop.

Well, I hope you’re proud of me because I actually went to the office Christmas party. That’s right. Anne Roberta Black decided to wear one of those sequined dresses that makes me resemble a walking representation of bokeh and come to the very same shindig that I’d avoided for twelve years. Okay, if you must prod, yes, I did have fun. I sang “The First Picture of You” by The Lotus Eaters at karaoke, took selfies, even, gulp, posed for the official photographer’s snaps. If someone captured my emotions, put it in a canister, and displayed it in a gallery for the entire world to observe, everyone would be astonished at the amount of sheer joy contained.

I have you to thank for that, Lucas. You may find this hard to believe, but as soon as reached that particular still in your virtual diary of you in that Mario costume, your peepers jumping into the foreground of my soul like usual, for your friend group’s little Yuletide gathering, I felt the urge to want to keep up with you; to bear even just the likeness of that cheeky spirit I see in that shy smile. Yes, I went to that bash…because of you.

Would that be enough for you to open the aperture of your affections on me? I hope so.

A picture of longing,

Anne

****

10 October 2022

Dear Lucas,

My throat feels like it’s been chemically burnt by sulphates …and it’s all because of you.

Today, I went to the British Museum to attend the British Horror Film Festival. Yes, I decided to spend my entire weekend at the same event you had immortalised in about a dozen or so Polaroids you scanned and attached onto your blog…. even if before today, the only frightful movie I’ve seen is the family slideshow of my acne-marked, picture-unperfect sixteen-year-old self.

Never have I trembled so much as when I sunk into that crimson padded seat, watched those glowing chartreuse eyeballs projected at the audience point at me like an Instamatic, and squealed my lungs out. Seriously, if humans had an anti-shake mode, I would have dialed to it the entire time I was in front of the screen.

Oh, the things I do to try to seek you, to bask in the golden hour that is staring into your hazel eyes. Yes, I did locate you; your timid little smile when you passed by me holding two buckets of popcorn is now engraved in the silver-coated paper of my brain. However, as much as I attempted to holler at you to glance my way, as if I were a fashion photographer trying to shoot an editorial, you never once turned your head and gave me a glance. When I bumped into you again in the hallways of the museum, the viewfinder of your consciousness seemed to be on everything but me. Ugh!

One day, I hope, Lucas?

Asking you to look at me through a new lens,

Anne

****

1 February 2023

Dear Lucas,

Goodness me does this wig feel heavy, almost like carrying a camera and its tripod on my head! Is this what cover girls have to deal with?

Yes, I did reach THAT entry, the very same one that brought in a lot of cold into the palette of my imagination. I wouldn’t say that I was surprised; binging on your posts, I’ve seen snapshots of who you are, after all (as well as of…). Still, stumbling upon the fact that you prefer long, dark, luxurious hair to my blunt, blonde bob was like an invisible fist smashing a filter and the shards of glass flying into my open eye.

Of course, growing my locks to the image of your dream girl would take longer than a portrait artist creating a photorealistic painting. I had to do the next best thing, then, and book a hair salon appointment so they could attach these hair pieces that feel as if they belong better woven into a piece of tarpaulin than on someone’s head. I’m not going to lie; it all felt as if I had a prop from a magazine spread plopped on my head.

…and yet, you never once considered to turn your head in my direction to study everything, not even for a flash of a bulb. Come on now. I’m beginning to think I’m but an aberration in your head, that all this effort to get you to notice me is but noise to you. Please tell me it isn’t so.

Wanting the right angle to your heart,

Anne

****

14 October 2023

Dear Lucas,

Okay, this is getting ludicrous now. You mean to tell me that I bought those tickets to Paris, changed landscapes to see for a week, and still, you would not heed my call? How, Lucas, just how?

Yes, I did trawl your blog again to see what you’re up to, to see a still from the life I so desperately want to be part of. When I saw the Eiffel Tower in the background of those photos you just recently published, I felt my fingers hovering over the mouse, as if they were moths gathering around a 120,000 lumen spotlight, and clicking to purchase those plane tickets for myself. What? Don’t think it strange. If you were in my shoes, if you wanted just one golden hour with the person you fancy, you’d book passage on that flight too.

Well, sad to say for me, you still couldn’t dare look at the girl who jetted across the English Channel for you, continued to crop more and more bits of my heart as you never searched the panorama for me. I tried, Lucas. Whenever you shared pics on your Instagram profile, --- exploring the Louvre, eating at a bistrot in Montmartre, at the Airbnb you rented for the trip --- I raced around the City of Lights just to be near you. I was even so close, within reaching distance to you, to photobomb one of those Instamatic shots you captured at Le Café de Deux Moulins. Alas, it seems like your regard is stuck in a chrome frame.

When is it my turn to be at the foreground of your mind? Answer me?

About to snap in frustration,

Anne

****

3 May 2024

Dear Lucas,

Okay, you win. I’m not going to bother you again; I will blur myself out of the rest of forever you have clearly chosen to be in without me.

Lucas, I will never be her, won’t I? There’s no way I can be like Diana Lange, photojournalist extraordinaire, the brown-eyed, ebony-haired, amethyst-frocked beauty you had your arms wrapped around in that blog post from 2017. It will be her toothy smile your sparkling hazel eyes will point at during next year’s British Horror Film Festival. It will be her you include in captions of your holiday snapshots on every platform you’re part of. It’s her who is the subject of your portraits…and the object of your affections.

Staring at your happy faces on today’s issue of The Guardian, taking in that sumptuous veil Diana had on as she looked ready to pronounce her vows to you, I had to concede. I can not go on focusing on you when your spotlight is clearly on another. I can’t continue writing these letters to you in my diary when your vision of the future involves anyone apart from me.

I guess the only thing to do is to wish that your life with Diana is as picture perfect as you’d hoped.

Closing the aperture of my heart on you,

Anne

****

13 July 2024

Dear Nick,

Yes, I know. How did I find out your name…