My dearest, the World,

How I long to see you! As I am trapped in my prison of brass and bones and iron expectations, I begin to see a light shining through. I know you're outside, and I have been looking in. I want to be closer, and I'm almost there. I feel you, I know your age old presence. And I can know you very soon.

I cut my hair, yes. I'm different from when we last met (how long has it been?) but who can avoid change? Even trapped, I could notice the subtle differences of my own mind. I noticed the walls changing as well — they began to wear away from the wind and rain and salted fears of my lifeblood poured against it. I look in the glass on the wall and I finally see someone I like. That's quite the change in itself. And I have heard that you too have changed. Big things are happening outside, that's why I'm so eager to make your acquaintance. Does anyone out there have time to be afraid anymore? I've spent so much time being afraid, but some part of me doubts that you can pause to fear under the great blue sky.

The sky — I long to see the stars as I would like. Yes, I can see the sky from my position, but I feel that I can't appreciate it properly. I want to know it as I wish to know you, with intimacy. But the space here is so small from which I can view that I see only cut slivers of the glorious moon when it is full. Even the sun, I cannot see. It scares me ever so slightly with its light. Is anyone scared of the light out there?

I know I speak of fear a lot, and for that I must apologize. That's all that exists in this prison I reside in. Do you think brass conducts thought? It's something that I've come to believe, because every time I think of fear it channels through the metal and rebounds into my body. I shake and stutter (I am usually the eloquent speaker) but the brass confines me. It is pretty, however — and I do not hate it as most would. I think I am forbidden of hating the beautiful. Is that not the human condition? Am I human? Are the people outside human? What is a human? Is it defined by biology or by ideal? Can you be inhuman if you harbor hate in your heart, or are you cast out for such things? I have heard most of you, dear World, in terms of how the people hate, but I know you yourself hate no one.

And I will learn to love you.

My greatest regards,

Alexander the Unknown