Dear John Doe

    Dear John Doe, I cannot tell you how many times I've written this out in my head, how many times, I've wanted to tell you since we've started texting, or how many times these emotions just came flooding back in general. We started talking again like it was nothing, and I bet you never even considered what a blow it was to me, the way we were terribly close and then you were gone, and I had no idea how to get by without the guy I once considered my best friend.

(not my photo!!!!)

    Dear John Doe, while yes, you have a name, I don't feel like using it. Though I hope you'll see this. I hope you'll know it's about you. I haven't decided if I'll hold back much of anything, just your name or maybe more. If you're reading this already, like you're hovering over my shoulder, I have to wonder if you're cringing, knowing exactly what's on my mind and the story that goes with what comes after. You know, or maybe you don't. Maybe you've completely blocked them out of your head, those forty-eight hours of dread. Those forty-eight hours I stayed awake, crying and consoling, you and your mother. Maybe that's what I'll leave alone, but you know it's there, and we were teenagers, of course we move on, but of course, all things impact us. 

    Dear John Doe, you were my brother's friend first, and we were silly, dating around at fifteen, hardly being able to kiss one another, and then you were into that guy. Do you remember him? I do, I adored him and I adored you two together, you broke his heart, I felt his tears and then again, you disappeared from my life, and I never heard from the other again. 

    Dear John Doe, to be honest, I actually can't remember the intervals of time you would be in my life then stop talking to me. I do that now. I'll talk to someone for awhile then just drop off the radar and leave them. I wonder if some broken part of me picked that up from you? Damaged, not broken. Though, maybe you lit the fuse but all the bullshit after the match was struck exploded into everything else. 

    Dear John Doe, I actually started writing this months ago, when, again, we first started talking, now on the eve that we're suppose to meet up, I find myself worried. We still haven't acknowledged jack-shit, and I'll take fault for that at this point too, but you still think we're going to be buddy buddy and talk like we've always have.

    Don't you remember what you said to me in those final words when you writing me out? That you felt uncomfortable and had always just told me what I wanted to hear? Don't you know that things I told you, between what I might have thought of as psychic abilities and seeing ghosts were from my heart and soul, that you were the only person I could talk to about them and I had thought we were sharing in something?

     I let a lot go after that. I forgot what it was like to tap into a different side of me, and I don't feel like I used to, I can't hear the other voices anymore and when I started reading Tarot cards, and a friend told me I needed to connect with my Guides, Spirits and Ancestors, it nearly broke me. Even now, I feel useless when I try to talk to them, and I'm pretty sure they're still harboring some sort of grudge against me. 

    Again, this is that lit fuse, but I don't blame you. I can only blame myself.

    So here I sit, on the eve of our finally getting together, meeting for the first time in what will nearly be a decade and I brood and worry, and rush to get out everything it is that I feel. I wouldn't be much of a writer if I didn't do such a thing.

    So here's to tomorrow. To hoping it's not as awkward or menacing as I think, and that maybe we'll find some closure, because you cannot tell me you don't need it too.