Summary

The first page of Part One, and the beginning of the book, begins with the address: “Dear Dreamer.” The speaker explains that while this letter is written out of “raw honesty and love,” it does not come from “expertise” (4). The speaker explains that he has not yet “gone through it all” (8), nor does he wear a “victor’s sash / or dollar bills / or unshakeable happiness” (9).

Rather, the speaker writes, this letter is being written “from the inside” (10). The letter comes from a “man doing it / the only way he knows how” (12) and “swallowing his moonshine mistakes” (12). The speaker analogizes himself to a man “tilling, hoping there’s a harvest coming” (12).

The speaker acknowledges that when he was younger, he expected himself to have been successful by the age that he was currently at: “At eighteen I said twenty-five / is when i’d make my...