A letter from Jan 01, 2023

dear s, it’s been a year. today i drove past l.b.’s house. i wanted to roll the windows down and skip forwards into happier than ever. scream a couple parts, turn up the volume till my ears bleed and the speakers break. i hope it’ll all turn out okay. i hope i’ll stop drowning. in the words of someone i aspire to be like: “grab my hand i’m drowning i feel my heart pounding why haven’t you found me yet?” imma let it keep on pounding. i don’t want it to stop, i just want.. this. this to stop. i want people to stop running and turn around. i want them to grab a drowning girls hand and drag her out so she can breath again. what do i look like? gurgling the words i can, trying to communicate with an ocean flooded in my chest? likely it looks as if i am a sea monster. maybe one day, somebody will pass me by. look down and be wholly unafraid of me, of looking away. some i wish to fear me. the people who will laugh and kick me further under. some i wish who will never see me at all, because they’ll simply pity me. dangle clear turquoise lagoons and gentle lakes over me head. “just let go, you can have this, what i have. you can be happy.” don’t show me the end result. don’t attempt to convince me with your sorry sugar and silver covered words of meaningless condolence and optimism. the mean nothing. nothing if i can’t get out. nothing if i can’t breathe. maybe one day there will be a person, or people, who will take my hand in theirs. and maybe they’ll drag me out and breathe air into my lungs, give me a breath of theirs when i’m slipping again. maybe one day, i’ll be able to breathe. so dear future me, here’s hoping. here’s praying. dear future me, maybe you won’t need anyone to make it through. but i’m sitting in the dark sending these broken words to you. breathe. breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. breathe. and when you can’t anymore, expand your lungs and thump again the battered drum of blood vessels and take another breath. BREATHE here’s a letter i want to get one day. alright? keep breathing. pull yourself out, grab a gentle strong hand on the way. BREATHE i love you. i love who you could be, who you are, who you have been, all the infinite alternate realities of you. it’s also me. i love that, and this, these moments, i love you. BREATHE keep breathing, please. i’m doing it on this side of sending it because i need to get it in my inbox someday. keep breathing, future me. let go of what binds you down, the tendrils of your last breath before you were dragged under. it won’t do you any good now. what will is the surface. scream for it, rake your bloody fists through stormy waters, but kick up. reach the surface. pull yourself out. i love you. breathe. ~from ry, rose, sophie, dfw, whatever you’d like to call me