Letter 01/29/22

01/29/22

Dear Unnamed,

She smelt like cigarettes and perfume. It made me wonder when she would die. Is this too morbid? Too dark? I can’t help but wonder. Doesn’t she know she’s loved? That her son needs her to find him worth living for because he doesn’t think he is and he needs a sign to keep going? Doesn’t she know that if she goes, he will, too? That her mother will have two graves to cry over through the years? Does she not care or does she just not know? How nice it must be to not know. How nice it must be to not have that kind of pressure weighing you down. To feel like you have to live for someone else. But, who else would you live for? If you say “for yourself,” you’re a liar. None of us find ourselves worth living for. It’s why we put our worth into everyone and everything but us. It’s why her son needs her to say he’s worth it. It’s why she needs to live for him— because she won’t do it for herself. It’s like she doesn’t have the capacity to. She’s too far gone under the waves of sadness and cigarette smoke, too far drowned in the vodka and coke that she tries hiding from him. But he knows. He knows how lost she is. It’s part of why he needs to know he’s enough. He needs her to be ok, because if she’s not, then what justice is there in this world? What is there thatw’s right and safe, then? Because he doesn’t know and needs an answer.

Cigarettes and perfume. Death and candy. Isn’t it funny how much we like that idea? How much we find ourselves chasing that? How the smell of burnt cigarettes is so foul but somehow we find ourselves secretly loving the way the bitterness smells? I think we like the idea of a slow death. Like wanting to die but not being so committed to it to follow through here and now. So we settle for a slow death that will win eventually. But what if you don’t want to die later? What if you want to live too late? I don’t know. I can’t tell you anything other than: you should’ve found someone or something to live for. But too many people don’t, and that is the problem. We’re too caught up in our own drama to care about anyone or anything else. You smoke to die but you forget you have a son who needs you here. But you don’t seem to care, do you?

Not that any of this is directed at you, Unnamed. These are just hypotheticals I have thought up. Not the cigarettes and perfume. I met a lady once who only smelt like burnt cigarettes and a sugar sweet perfume. She was kind. But happy people don’t smoke. People who want to live don’t smoke. It made me wonder about her life and inspired me to write her story, and this has been it. I hope you understand what I mean. Maybe these are just words to you, but I mean something by them. I hope you understand it, that my words, my story, mean something to you and make sense. It’s not black and white. Everything is in a million shades of grey and I need to know if you can see them all and read between the lines. Let me know if you understand. I need to know you hear me, that you understand my soul like this.

Love,

Yours