Dear (_____)

Dear Alcohol,

I've been pretty high functioning for a while.  I know I'll never be cured.  There is no cure.  I remember you.  I remember everything you took from me.  You took a person I wanted to marry from me the same way you took me from someone I wanted to marry more than a decade later.  It's unreal being on the other side of you and the heartache.  Feeling like there is nothing I can do to stop you.  More than a decade ago, you snatched the first person that loved me away from me because I didn't know what you are.  A decade of growth later.  More than.  I have changed and can see you for what you are.  I can see your tendrils and suction cups, your butterfly wings that look like fungus and friendly moss, your horned growths and twigs and flowers and sun beam colors.  I can see your off seasonal artisanal aromas and hellishly intriguing recipes for what they are.  Your get togethers and time cheaters and machinery and armors plated with reactive impenetrable metal scales.  I can see you and you've taken someone from me.

We are even.

We are square.

You took some of my friends, both of my uncles and a few aunts, my father's actual father that I never got to meet, my grandmother's husband, cousins, untold family members I'll never know, both of my parents by proxy, my childhood, myself away from my first real love, and my second real love away from me.

Fuck you.

I would say "never again", but the devils greatest feat was convincing the world it didn't exist.

You do.



Sincerely,

Hobbes

Dear (_____)

Dear piercing hip pain,

We've ruled out kidney stones, appendicitis, burst and displaced disks in the spine, and abdominal tears.  Could you please just tell me what you are?  Is that so difficult?  This whole shell game of taped up notes is getting awfully passive aggressive and I can't keep guessing what's wrong every day and adjusting my work schedule on the fly.  I have to work!  I am needed!  There are deadlines to meet.  So what is it today?  Who exactly are you that I'm sharing my body with?  No one even told me you signed a lease.  Tendon inflammation?  Lack of rest?  Too much stretching?  Low pressure swelling?  Tiny chunk of bone?!  Cartiledge tear?!?!  A welcome to old age and the gift is "this is the rest of your life til you die"?!?!?!  Stop me if I guess your name! 

Sincerely,

Occasionally Bed Ridden at 33

Dear (_____)

Dear future self,

You  are going to check in on your parents through approximate channels and they will not have changed since they expressed themselves two decades ago and since you spoke to them last nine years ago. 

It's okay to not be surprised.  Don't waste yourself hoping for bullshit.

sincerely,

feral

P.S. There is no home to go back to.  What was left was not home.

Dear (_____)

Dearest OCD,

No.  Okay?  Enough is enough.  And what the hell is that whispering?  Funcussions, am I right?  But seriously though.  No.




Sincerely,

What in the hell is that whispering???  Damnit, am I hearing things again?  Yep. 

P.S. go home OCD... do not make me go get the hose.  

Dear (_____)

Dear TSA Agent,

I realize my laptop is huge by today's standards.  I realized it 45 seconds ago when, glancing to my left and then to my right, no one else appeared to struggle hefting their machines from their backpacks into gray inspection bins.  With this in mind, fuck you and your wrinkled nose.  You don't have to use the laptop, you don't have to carry it, hell you don't even have to look at it as much as see through it, so fuck right the fuck off and keep working that conveyor belt and maybe next time make a half decent joke so I can at least have a chuckle with my techno shaming and body scan.

sincerely,

2011

Dear (_____)

Dear Arousal,

There is nothing that can be done at this time.  It is the bodies understanding, with the exception of a few dissidents, that it is in fact time to eat some breakfast and go to bed for a few hours before work begins in the cold, wet, and largely miserable weather outside of the windows.  It is also the bodies understanding, with objections noted, that it is absolutely not the time to gratify sexual lusts, especially when those chemical cocktails of senses and emotions can be shared with the bodies partner, or as you so delicately put it "tear one off."  Unfortunately, you will have to wait until such time as the moment can be shared at which juncture you will be free to share it as many times and in as many degrees as you like.  Please vacate the premises immediately.

Thank you,

Executive Officer of Intimate Relations

c.c.

Fluids Exchange Commision

Dear (_____)

Dear Santa,

I know it's a little early and we haven't exactly been best friends.  You ghosted me pretty hard and I didn't take it well and I do still harbor some ill feelings.  We can make it right.  I haven't seriously injured anyone in years and I've been pretty damn good to boot.  I know I've said some things about nuking the human race off of the face of the planet and lining the fringe of my future woodland compound with the heads of my enemies at three yard intervals and designing a super virus that will reset the planet.  That's just talking out of school.  You and I both know I'm not that ruthless and I do care for and can love people.  If you could see your way through to giving me a flamethrower this year, I promise it will only be used for good.  Not even just entertainment, because we both know entertainment falls into so many different categories.  Just one flamethrower.  Good can be entertaining, but entertaining is not always good.  If you can do that, I would be very appreciative and let the past be the past.  If you can't, I understand too.  The future can be fickle.  Just thought I'd lob it up there for you to think about, big guy.  Dig the beard too, man.  Mine is starting to go a little gray myself.

Have a good one,

Child at Heart

P.S. I'll build my own if I have to, but if I blow myself up it's on you

Dear (_____)

Dear pain,

You've taken sleep away from me.  The paranoia that breeds across my maps is all rooted to you.  I never know if the next morning is the morning when a swollen disk pokes a nerve or a frayed nerve get's caught in gravity's rotation and snips a cold bolt down one of my legs.  That paranoia, that anxiety, that never knowing if all of the days waking without you are a lead to some sort of crescendo two days long.  pERMANENT INURY BRED Memory. 

You don't scare me often.  I hope, when next you arrive, you bring some frost and ankle deep snow too.

huddled,

Hobbes

Dear (_____)

Dear cigarettes,

You got me again.  Another pack gone with nothing to show for it but discolored phlegm, chest pain, and a hole in my wallet where $10 used to be.  Fuck you.  I'm not going to quit quitting.  I know that you never really do finish quitting and that every week you can say no is maybe another day you might get to live when everything starts shutting down and the soul waves a finger "alright, let's wrap this thing up!"  I know childhood trauma already ate decades off the end of my life.  I know my line of work, my station in society, my genetic make up, and just day to day survival stress shaves years off what's left.  If I can avoid it, I'd like to not suffocate inside my own body.  I'd like to die doing something much more interesting.  So I'm not going to quit quitting just because I feel like absolute shit and burned more of my life away.  You'll come knocking again.  I'll turn up the radio and go sit in another room.  The porch light may be on, but don't wait up for someone to come to the door.

Later 'gator.

Dear (_____)

Dear Anyone Writing A News Piece,

If the physical act of slamming someone or something has not taken place, you need to stop using the word.  The are so many ways to describe a difference of opinion or disagreement with nuance and hues.  There's a veritable rainbow of colorations of conflict in the English language.  Use it.  Nuance and shades of disagreements, imagine that.

'The term has been over used to color so many things that it has lost all reasonable semblance of tone regardless of context.  "Local man slams post office for bad service" as the title reads the same as "local man hopes sinkhole opens underneath local post office and entire staff burns in hell while demons eat their flesh"; meanwhile the actual content of the article is more along the lines of "local man doesn't much care for post office service and files gently worded complaint."  

Another headache inducing favorite: "coach slams players."  Just no, okay?  One hundred times no.  Not only was no one physically slammed, but all the coach said was that an appropriate amount of effort wasn't evident on the field or court or whatever and he wants to see more intensity in the next game or match or whatever.  He did not say his players were dog poo, he did not say he couldn't stand them.  I mean, have you ever slammed something?  The point in slamming something is to use enough power to potentially break it and create a powerful clap of noise.  

If we're going to go this route can we go all the way with it?  Can we see headlines like "Mom breaks parent teach association over her knee and sends school board to the hospital with 3rd degree burns" or "politician X works the groin of tax bill with brass knuckles" or "player skins coach alive and proceeds to wear bloody pelt in several later tweets over sexist equal pay remarks." 

I miss when slamming something used to mean something.  Don't you?  Find something else to suck the life out of.  

Thanks,

Fiction

Dear (_____)

Dear Universe,

You took something from me.  Their isness was severed and I will have them back.

I will take the heads responsible for one of the thefts.  The other, I will scar.

You will not take me by surprise and if I must I will wear it until the day you knock.  I do not forgive you.

sincerely,

a modified heart

Dear (_____)

Dear kitty,

I know you can be inscrutable sometimes.  Disinterested or content, tired or lazy, starving on the verge of death or just a little peckish, skittish or playful?  Only you know.  When you are feeling skittish, please try to telegraph it a bit more before I bend down to pat you on the head.  I don't mind the occasional clawing or swipe or surprised bite.  What I would like to avoid is the full powered "I must get out of danger's way right now" leap straight upward, smashing your head into my nose hard enough to make me see spots.

It is always funny once my eyes stop watering, the spots fade, my nose stops running and I can see you're okay too, but damnit we've got to get on the same page on this one before one of us loses an eye or something.  Thanks, pal.

With love,

your shipmate 

Dear (_____)

Dear Old Guy,

Yes, you, old guy that sits on your front porch all day harassing people about where they can and cannot park their cars on a public street.  The neighborhood has changed.  It isn't all Italian anymore.  It hasn't been for quite some time. Other people live on this street now.  That is correct.  Other people live on THIS street now, not YOUR street.  If you say one more word to me about where I've parked, I will tear you to pieces.  Your thinly veiled racism is cancerous to everyone.  Your misogyny turns my stomach every time they respond and stop to talk to you out of sheer pity.  The world has left you behind and your ticket is punched.  Do us all a favor and disappear.  You burned my last shred of sympathy for the aging.  You know the card.  That was all you had.  I'm going to say this once so don't let your failing neurons misplace it: other people may find you adorable, a throwback, a mascot, a quirk of the block in an odd town, or harmless, and will continue to shrug you off and entertain your nonsense but you are the physical embodiment of so many things about the past I absolutely despise and if you open your mouth in my direction one more time and it is not a "hello" or "goodbye" I am going to erase you.

Sincerely,

Donefuckingaround

Dear Cocaine

Dear Railgun,


I know that you know that I know.  I know that you know the nature of our enhancement.  We don't get anything done faster.  I know that you are counter-intuitive.

While it feels like everything is happening faster, the tooth is everything happens slower and from the inside it all feels.  Sped up.

One thing about you remains true: not a day goes by without wondering the glass  What if?  Recently,  a day does where we nose what's up.   A day we know it up tight and everywhere it could and should be.  A day where

that shit holds no water and time a'plenty and none of it for that.




dourly yours,

Mr. Derpow

Dear (_____)

Dear Malcolm and Norma,

You can't hurt me anymore.  Rory Breaker put it fairly comically so I'll borrow his words for you so that I don't have to explain it again.  If you try to come see me "I'll kill ya."  If you hurt anyone I love to try to get at me  "I'll kill ya."  If you lie to other people to recruit them for your purposes "I'll kill ya."  If you try to insert yourselves into my life again before I say you can "I'll kill ya."  If you touch my sisters or brother again and it isn't a hug or a kiss "I'll kill ya."  If you have a problem or question for me and you continually take it up with someone else  "I'll kill ya."  What I'm trying to say is I'm not 6 anymore.  I'm not afraid of you.  I'm not 22 anymore.  I'm not afraid of you.  I'm not 25 anymore.  I'm not afraid of you.

It's very easy to stay alive.  But, as Rory said, "you're going to have to work very hard to stay alive" and if you don't understand the fuck I've said to you in the past-  I am waiting for you to die.  Please hurry.  Do not make me accelerate the clock on your fading years. Retire.  Your cause is lost.  You have three kids, not four.  That ain't changing anytime soon.

Sincerely

Crx24

Dear (_____)

Dear Weed,

Smoking you an hour or two before bed has yielded me the most fulfilling sleep I've experienced in quite some time.  I'm not used to waking up at 8, rested and alert.  At first, the sensation was alarming.  I had so many questions and was sure there was no way I would make it through the day on a measly six hours of sleep.  I scoffed at the idea that I could function without at least eight, preferably 10 to 12, hours of sleep.  I'm not going to make a habit of sleeping less than 8 hours, but I was surprised to still be sharp well into the evening.

Imagine that: no pills, no concoctions, not a 12 pack or half a fifth of liquor, not five cigarettes and some herbal tea.  A spliff or two and I slept through the night without waking up to a point where I was inside myself again and had to start all over to try to fall asleep.  I wanted to ask you if that's what most people feel like when they wake up.  Part of me is still amazed.  I know the more I use you, the more tolerant my brain chemistry will be and I'll probably have to up the intake little by little to hunt down and capture that elusive deep rest.  I don't mind.

The sensation reminds me of when we use alcohol to escape the present's grim realities and the past's ghosts that simply will not die and you wake up 3 days after a bender and realize the hangover has finally cleared and you can actually remember anew what it feels like to not be hungover.  So many days in a row, it becomes normal and what should be normal is a shock to the system.  The body's biochemistry is a frustrating, fine, machine.

Thanks for helping me sleep inside all of its damned moving parts for a few hours.  I couldn't do it without you.

ever yours,

     SmokeyDokey

Dear (_____)

Dear Infectious Laughter,

I'm never sure if I should refer to you by name.  I hope a cure is never found for you.

Sincerely,

a kid trying to catch his breath

Dear (_____)

Dear We,

I will never leave you.  I will never destroy you.  I will not erase you.  I will not hurt you.  We will continue to live.  Together.  Try not to be afraid.  When you are afraid you hurt us and damage the links that keep us close and the links that allow us to be a part of larger fabrics.  You have nothing to fear from me.  I cannot lie.   You can trust me.  I am you.  I will not allow you to come to harm.

with love,

We

Dear (_____)

Dear Renaissance Gent,

Every now and weekend you realize you are worth your salt at just about anything and very very good at almost nothing.  There is nothing you cannot do poorly and a couple of things you can do with deadly dexterity and those things have no value on their surface to anyone who would even give them a second glance.  You are always out of your depth and comfortable.  You are a big fish in a big pond and a small fish in a muddy ocean.  I hope you feel okay.  I hope, too, that how you feel has little to do with what you do.

Sincerely,

the ocean

Dear (_____)

Dear fractions,

You are a weird bunch, but I was able to remember how to divide you to describe the ratio of materials I would need to adjust the size of my aluminum foundry to allow enough air to pass around the crucible and feed the coals adequately enough to produce a constant and predictable heat capable of melting my crushed cans into ingots without looking it up in the back of one of my composition notebooks.

Being able to give you a mental high five and a wink was pretty damn satisfying.  You guys are alright.

sincerely,

from the tool bench