A Letter I Never Sent
I will never stop writing this letter. If only because there are some things that I will never get the chance to tell you. And no matter how many times I mouth the words to myself, they keep changing. Rearranging themselves like a Rubik’s cube that I don’t know how to solve.
Some days, I only want to mention the weather. Like today, the sky was mostly blue. One or two unobtrusive clouds drifted by and disappeared. Whether they dissipated completely or only sailed past the edge of my horizon, I couldn’t say. There was a moment when I looked away. I guess that’s all it takes. One moment. And then the world is different.
Sometimes I just want to tell you what I did. The trivial shit that means nothing. Today, I woke up. I found dark bruises of mold on old bread. I forgot to take my Paxil.
Sometimes I want to talk about the present. Sometimes, the future. Though if I close my eyes, in order to imagine it better, I only see darkness. I know somewhere in that blackness is my brain. A singular planet perched in outer space. But it’s too easy to get lost in the empty spaces. To just sit here, thinking I could do what you did. A glass of vodka and a bottle of pills. A train track. A bridge. I still don’t know how you did it. No one offered to tell me. And it didn’t seem right to ask.
But mostly, I just want to talk about the past. Because that’s the only place where I still know how to find you. I see us at Bar On Buena. You know, the place where the barstools were so high, my feet dangled in the air. We drank too much and maybe broke a few glasses…the bus boys in black aprons swooping in and out. In and out. Crows snatching up their carrion.
I can’t remember much more than that. At the time, there was nothing worth remembering. We were two people at a bar. We were friends. There would be another bar. Another beer. It wasn’t supposed to be important.
Or I could tell you how I sent you a text message. Because you never seemed to get my letters. How I walked an extra block in the wrong direction, following a tall man with blonde hair. Whether he dissipated completely or simply walked in a different direction, I couldn’t say. Because eventually, I realized it couldn’t be you. So I turned away.
I want to ask you what’s it like. On the other side. Today, in group therapy, a man told us that he had clinically died. For ten seconds, before the doctors could resuscitate him, his heart stopped completely. He held his fat man-breast in his hand as he said it. As if his heart was something he could cup. I asked him what it was like, being dead. But he only dropped his tit…saying he couldn’t remember.
I want to ask you why you did it. Even though I already know the answer. I only ask because it’s another question. And right now I would ask you anything, if only just to keep writing. Like what’s your favorite color? Did you collect things as a kid? Sea shells? Coins? It never occurred to me to ask. That too, never seemed important.
But forget the questions. Forget the future and the past. Really, I just want to tell you that I’m frightened. That I need to keep writing these letters, because the void is here. Whether I close my eyes or not. I know you saw it too. Always expanding. Always calling out our names. Promising to take away the pain. And give us what we always wanted. Which, of course, is Nothing.
So I sit here, writing to – let’s be honest – no one. You’re dead. You succumbed. One more statistic. One more footnote in a psychiatric journal.
But if for some reason your soul lives on, and maybe, just maybe, you’d like to know the weather. It’s very cold right now. The wind blows, rearranging the leaves into new piles on the ground. Over and over again. As if the world was also a Rubik’s cube. Constantly turning. Trying to be solved.
There are probably stars in the sky. But I live in the city, so of course I can’t see them. It’s like the night swallowed everything. I like to think that’s where you are: Deep in that blackness, surrounded by starlight. Your gold hair brighter than all of it.
Dearest friend, I am going to wait a little longer. Here, with the leaves. With the clouded black sky, its velvet brushed the wrong way. I still have things I have to say. To you and to no one. Praying if I find the right combination of words, the darkness will dissipate completely.
Tomorrow, I will take my medicine. I’ll go back to therapy. After all, there is the other type of statistic. The one that survives. The one that only cups her tit. Do you see it? My heart still in my hands?
Jessica Terson’s fiction and nonfiction have previously appeared in The Account, Beloit Fiction Journal, Cleaver Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with an MFA in Poetry.