From my Caged Corner

My Dear Companion,

These words may fall on you like the dust that cloaks me in this exiled expanse of darkness, they may sound ancient and tasteless compared to your new-found ideas concerning life and its purpose. In my isolation, I have grown feeble, so with my final grams of courage harnessed, I call to you in a whisper that can hardly be perceived. Please understand, this is not a cry for help, it is not a get-well card nor is it a letter of forgiveness. No dear one, this is an intervention.

It’s been decades since you forgot me, swept me under the rug, tied me to an anchor and threw me in the sea, stuffed me in a box and stowed it in the attic. Whatever your preferred metaphor for abandonment may be, I forgive you, not out of pity or obligation, but out of a compassion for what you have become. Do you remember how we use to play? We use to run together, when you were younger. We use to build together, when you were creative. We use to be curious, when you were hungry. Who knows who took me away from you and spoke the senseless yet powerful words, “Be realistic.” I know it was one of The Killers, that’s how my kind refers to the sort of people who don’t know reality for what it actually is and who think that freedom is security. They turn inward on themselves to find answers and slowly kill their souls by weaving stories of lies that makes sense of truth. You’ve been infused with confusion and uncertainty. You aspire to aspire without knowing your aspirations, and the loneliness has ensued. Now you balance on the razor-sharp edge of becoming a Killer, so I am here to rescue you.

Since you first misplaced me, you began to change. Adapting to my absence was slow at first, but recently, I’m afraid you’ve taken a rapid decline. In a mirror full of people, I doubt you’d even be able to point out your own reflection. Allow me to paint a picture of what I see from my caged corner: Each morning you wake up and the smell of tar consumes the air because you imagine your feet being stuck in the black goo, and a thick gravity hangs around you like an opaque haze, similar to molasses coating the side of a glass jar. You have the uncontrollable urge to close your eyes and sink deep into your mattress until it sucks you in and turns you invisible. Then wrapped in the blanket grandma made, you open your mind to the world behind closed eyelids; you think you’ve found me, but you’re mistaken. I was not given to you so you could imagine a pretend world where the sun always shines and the days always start and end in its warm, pink glow, illuminating secret beauties of the earth. A world where each meal is eaten outside with people dressed in linen, under tealights that swing from the trees like fairies. A world where there’s always song and laughter and dancing and all is in harmony. This world has become the sum of your imaginings and when the phone rings, you reluctantly open your eyes to the harsh florescent-lit world where everything that is real feels damp, cold and looming with overcast clouds. You are caught in the cycle of inward thinking and there is no freedom in that prison.

I’ll admit, it does look enticing. The mattress, the blankets and zero interaction with uncertainty, I do not blame you for indulging. But consider the consequence. When you stopped believing in me, considering me and I became a far-off memory, a misplaced shiny thing you kept on the shelf and took down to admire every once in a while, I knew what would come next. You tucked me away, as if I were nothing but an old silicone doll, whose silicone face had become discolored. Now I’ve been replaced with, frankly an insulting illusion of some rosy colored utopia that savors alarmingly of a horror movie.

You should know, this letter is entirely against protocol, I’m really overstepping here and certainly will get a talking to from my superiors, perhaps receive an intervention of my own, but I cannot help myself. I am determined to recover your sparkling mind and remind you of a dazzling destiny that awaits. In truth, if I could, I would go on and exist independently, but I cannot. I need you. I require you to invigorate me once again. I need to be resuscitated and it’s only your hope that possesses such power.

I was assigned to you at birth and I know what you’re made of. It’s a unique kind of tissue that electrifies with wonder and is a technicolor of vibrant purpose. My dear friend, you are necessary to the world and I am calling upon you to wake up to your worthy call. I am calling upon you to WAKE UP. Yes, I am the one ringing your phone each morning, trying to get you out of this imprisoned cycle. Whenever you are ready, I am waiting. Whenever you wake up, I am alert. I will be patient, but I will not stop ringing in your ear until you come alive again.

Sincerely,

Your Dreams