#letter archive

None of us are infected, most of us were underground where the ooze attacked, and others carried out survival instructions to get to where they currently are. “Survivors” who turned out to be infected were unfortunately terminated.

We do, yet such information matters not, for I will remain anonymous for the time being. Though I will be present to answer any questions myself.

If I want to stop being consumed by the past, then I suppose this is the best way to go about things. I took a picture of this the day after I wrote it with every intention of typing it up, but I could never bring myself to post it until now. I was also going to rip it out of my notebook (he tried reading it, and said he only read the first few lines, but I never wanted him to read any), but I never did that, either. I'm not sure what I'm trying to accomplish with this, really, because there are people who know me on this site and, well...oh well. I suppose it can't hurt anymore. Unedited and whole.

I hope he never sees this.

Two weeks ago in AP Writing class, my teacher decided to give us a new type of prompt for our freewrite. She asked us to write a love letter. Most of the class wrote about food or friends or (and this was the best one) Michelle Obama's arms, because she said we didn't have to write to a lover, just to something we loved. But I still wrote about him.

(You turned around and said, "Don't write about me," and even though I know you were joking, don't you know how much that hurt? Because it stung, it really did; my face flushed and I had a lump in my throat it was hard to swallow and I thought someone had found a vise and squeezed my chest because it was so, so hard to breathe and i swear I would have cried if I could, didn't you see how much it hurt?)

We formed small groups later and he was in my group. We were supposed to share what we wrote, but I didn't. He didn't either, but he said he wrote about a girl, though he never named her. He said he just called her love.

I don't know if he wrote about me.

love letter i’ll never send

I was going to write to you long ago, a long, long time ago, but somehow I just couldn’t find the words. Still can’t, though I’m trying.

My gods, have I tried enough.

Or maybe I haven’t tried at all. Maybe the reason my chest aches like I’ve slept one too many hours too late is because this is what I never thought I’d feel, what I never thought I’d ever hold in my arms.

I never thought I’d hold you in my arms, either.

It’s spreading to my cheeks now, like wildfire burning deep and hot and it’s getting stronger by the second, see what kind of effect you have on me? Do you see now? Can you feel it, the way it’s soaring out of control oh it’s you, it’s all you I swear I was a finished puzzle until you came and chopped off my corners, and it must have been a match you held towards my core because it was warm, you were so, so warm that day…

I know how it feels to burn from the inside out now, and in a sick, masochistic way, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Not when it means I’m never going to forget you.

My cheeks ache like I’ve laughed more times than the winds swing by to play songs on the chimes, except I know that it’s not from smiling too much.

No. The smiling I can do.

It’s from clenching my jaws to stop the deep pulsing burn from filling up and spilling over, because I am full, filled to the brim

and there is no cure for this type of sickness.