Memere

Oh Memere,
I'm such a failure. I can't seem to do anything right. I feel like you wouldn't like me at all. Or maybe you would think I was wonderful. I don't know. I just know that I only miss you when I'm breathing. I think about you all the time. I should have moved on by now, right? You've been gone for so long I can't remember what you sound like. All I have left are videos and pictures. Videos that I can't watch because I don't have a VCR.

I feel like I've done absolutely nothing that I should've by now. I just wish you were here. I wish Pepere was here. I wish I knew where Dad was. I wish, I wish, I wish.

I am so selfish, Memere. Because I think you should've lived. You should've been there for my wedding, you should've been there when I got my GED. You should've been there when I was in my car wreck. You should be here now. It's unfair.

I think the worst thing is that I don't remember that much about you. All that I "remember" is from videos, a few phone calls and a letter you wrote Mom. I don't remember what you smelled like, or your voice. I feel as though I have no independent memories. And I don't know if that is because I never had independent memories of you or because of my car accident. So much has been lost over the years. So many memories that we'll never have together.

Auntie says you and Pepere are only a heartbeat away. How is it that you are so close and yet so very far away?

I used to talk to you, after you died. Not literally, but just talking to the air and pretending you were there. I wish you were, so I could tell you about all the things I've learned or about my wedding. Tell you about my job and our new apartment. Plan a trip to see you for Christmas. I wish we could do all those things. And we can't.

Would you have asked me what you asked mom? "Do you feel so very young, dear?" I would say no, because this constant missing you has aged me. I've aged a million years in the time you've been gone. You've been gone far too long.

Would you love me now, Memere? Would you be proud of what I've accomplished? I'm afraid you wouldn't. And in the meantime I'm still missing you like my entire world has ended.

Dear W,

Dear W,
I dreamt about you last night, as I sometimes do. Except, instead of the rage I normally feel upon waking, I just felt tired and sad. I'm ready to move on from you, I think. I am ready to let you slip right out of my existence, but you can't. You simply won't fade quietly into a good night. I have come to believe that you exist solely to torment my mother and, through her, to torment me.

I dreamt that Chris and I were looking for something, throwing clothing and other such things all over a bedroom of sorts. It was only when I looked up I realized it was the bedroom I had in the little blue trailer and where the bed should've been for the futon bunk-bed there were only bars. I glanced up at you through those bars, of course you came in without knocking, like you always did.

I didn't yell at you to knock, but simply said you needed to knock before entering someone's room. You walked back over to the door and re-entered, again without knocking. You never told me what you wanted, just stood there, staring. I said something, though I don't know what it was, and you said I didn't know you, I had never known you. You were voicing the words I often think inside my own head.

"Oh, I know you." I said. "I even know what you enjoyed in bed."

You scowled at that and threatened Mom. I lied and said I had walked in on you many a time. Not entirely untrue, but mostly a lie. The truth is that I've always known what you preferred, it was obvious. You enjoyed being in control of all of us, that should logically extend into your bedroom dealings with my mother.

I asked  you what my favorite movie was and you said, "Home." Obviously that wasn't right, and in the waking world I don't think there even is such a movie.

Your favorite movie is "Remember the Titans" and you're least favorite book in the Bible is "Judges" because it is so gory and violent. Which is why it was one of my favorite books, besides "Job" because God is so sarcastic. You never really knew me. I wonder if you ever even cared to try.

Because you were too busy exerting your dominance over us, too busy abusing us and starving us, you missed the beauty that was us. We could've been a beautiful family.

You make me so sick, sick of men, sick of life, sick of everything. I can't talk to God, because I hate that he let you be a part of our lives. I can't go to church because it reminds me of all your lies and hypocrisies and hatred.

I was trapped inside those bars in my dream. I let you trap me there, but I told you to get the fuck out. No malice any longer, just a weary GTFO. I wish you would, truly.

sincerely,
Sarai

Returning to the Font.

Dear ____,

What is it about you that makes me want to write? To scream and cry and dance around like an idiot?

What is it about you that draws me in, even when I tell myself I won't waste anymore verbs or adjectives or nouns on you?

I hate you one moment and then I love you the next. I miss you and then I wish we had never met.

You wreak such havoc on me, emotionally and spiritually, sometimes physically. You make me want to laugh and write volumes of poetry and purple prose.

I want to kill you sometimes, remove the root of you from my soul. Others I wish I could kiss you or be held by you.

I'm so tired of these contradictions. Is it worth it? Will you be the muse that I need to stimulate the growth of the words in my garden? Or will you be my downfall, the weed that chokes everything else out but the hate and the tears and the unforgiveness?

I don't know anymore. I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going. I'm feeling things I keep telling myself I'm not and you are there asking how I am after so long?

Wasn't it you that said we had to stop talking? I may take the credit in some verses, but in reality it was YOU that said you needed to stop talking to me, but you follow me, haunt me, sabotage me. I don't get it. I'm so confused. Why? Why now?

I guess I'll take the chance, time heals all wounds, right? Can we rebuild? Do I want to? Why am I suddenly cold, just thinking about you and all that lies in the not-so-distant past?

God, I'm confused and you're a drug that keeps taking me higher and higher until I'm too scared to look down. I feel like I've lost track of who I am any time you are near. And you aren't near, but you are. You are as close as my skin and yet further than I can imagine. Why do I let this bother me?

And to think, the only bait you use is "how have you been?"

Dear Annie,

Dear Annie,
Last night, for the first time in so long I don't remember, I dreamt about you. Honestly, it's been so long since I've seen you that I hardly think about you. I feel a little bad about that. But when I do think about you, it is always with a mixture of fondness and fear and nostalgia.

I think about you when I think about the Barbies of the World collection or China dolls. I still have the layout of your old house memorized, the one on Marilyn Drive. Sometimes, when I see a spider I remember how terrified you were of them and how I was so apathetic about them. I remember that, as children do, you wanted me to be scared of them too and you held the flashlight tightly as your other hand made spiders engulf the shadows of the ceiling. And all I could do was giggle, because it seemed so silly to me, to be afraid of such a little thing. What could it do to me?

It wasn't until the next morning, when we discovered Smoky (my Labrador puppy) dead, the rigor mortis having set in and his little body conformed to the side of his dog house, that I became afraid. And Jasmine (Smoky's sister) died later that afternoon, half buried underneath the shovel and other tools Wes used to bury them in the yard. I still feel guilty about leaving her suffocating underneath those tools. It took her hours to die, when we could've rushed her to a vet. Because of that day I became afraid of spiders. Spiders brought death. And massive amounts of childhood guilt. I drift between the waves of that fear really, some days are better than others. Did you ever grow out of it?

It's funny, but when I think of you I often think about you singing. You sang "Amazing Grace" that day with the dead puppies, a plaintive dirge. You sang that cute little song we made up about Ice cream cones to Hannah so she wouldn't cry as we drove to my house. Looking back you and Maria, your sister, were always singing. At least in my memory.

I don't even remember how we met or became friends. I know that you had been on the edges of my periphery for a while, someone I knew but not someone I hung out with. It wasn't until after the other girls I used to hang out with had ditched me, for good apparently, that you and I became friends. It was jealousy that had caused them to ditch me in the first place. I was only seven and was already a woman in all senses of the word except for menstruation. You were ten and had not yet achieved a training bra so I'm not sure why you and I ended up being friends. I sometimes worried that you didn't like me because of my breasts. They always got in the way and I was more a boy than a girl most times.

It was only when I was with you that I was a girl, really. We played dress up most of the time. Or we hid behind the bushes against the fence at the back of your house and spoke to our "fairy." That little bit of imagination I cherish most. I adored our "fairy." I hated it when that part of our play-time came to an end. She died with the oncoming winter, a summer and autumn sprite, and we never resurrected her.

We chased each other through the house sometimes, searching for places to hide. Most often that was the laundry room amongst the dress up clothes and wash waiting to go. That day that you claimed you were a vampire and that you were going to drink me dry, where were your parents? Or Maria? I don't remember them being there at all. I remember running, out of breath and slightly frightened. I have always felt mildly panicked when someone was "chasing" me, even in play. I hid first in Maria's room, then down the stairs and sliding into the kitchen and down another set of stairs to the sunken living room. From there I ran to the laundry room. I hid behind one of the machines, but I could hear you coming. I ended up opening the door to the back staircase to your parents room. I ran, quietly, up the stairs into their room and into their bathroom and hid behind the glass doors of the shower. You found me, of course.

When I dreamt of you, I dreamt that you were married, happily, and working for a Senator. Which senator is unclear. But where you were living was like a dream land, partially because it was. Everything was rounded and fantastical. It had portions of the house on Marilyn Drive and other houses I've admired over the years. And for portions, I was seven running away from you all over again. But you were an adult and I was the child, it was odd. It never felt like that when we were kids, I always felt that you and I were on even ground.

After all, it was in your house that I fell in love with Ancient Egypt, our Homeschool group learning about Tutankhamen. And your dog's name was Kizzy, after the ancestor of Alex Haley in his book "Roots."

I miss you, Annie. I do think about you, not as often as I used to. Do you remember me at all? I wish you well, maybe one day, with the wonders of the internet and what not, we'll be able to find one another on Facebook or something.

Until then,
Love,
Sarai

Fawn of the Dead.

Dear Fawn,

Often I think about you. Usually in my bed, in the old house, at night and mostly naked. Sometimes I think about you, fully clothed, when we were in the middle of bumfuck Egypt and you were brilliant and vital and full of something I can't quite explain. You were my everything even then, though I don't think I realized it and I don't think you did either. We were just best friends then. Nothing more. Though I would often joke that I could be your mom (which I totally could, by the way) and sometimes called you my sister and my wife.

Do you remember when we told that one odd friend of yours that I was your cousin from the Jordan? I thought about that recently while waiting on a customer from Saudi Arabia. We fooled a lot of people with our talk of being sisters originally from Japan and only living in the states for a short time. Just long enough to raise the money to get home. I still feel like we are trying to get home to Japan some days. Do you ever think about those times?

I remember when we first met in person. We hugged as though we were long lost friends and we laughed so hard I thought we'd die. We were going to see Yo and X in September. Lots of stuff happened after that though that prevented that particular excursion. It's okay though. We met Michael, we got way smashed, we got kicked out of that one clinic (I could be your mom! Honeyblade!), I read "Exquisite Corpse" and frightened you by laughing at it. We made lots of trips to the hospital, which weren't fun. Though that one nurse pegged us as a couple before we actually became one.

Then you got sick. And I was scared, honey. I was worried that you were going to leave me, because we had no idea what was going on. One day you were fine and the next you weren't. But we made it through because we couldn't give up. It was like finding another piece of my puzzle, really. So we watched Korean Horror films and we ate ramen like it was going out of style (though there was nothing we wanted more than some good old fashioned Mozzarella Bites). You made me jump a mile high grabbing my leg while we watched "A tale of Two Sisters." I let you talk me into watching "Dawn of the Dead" and I was surprised when I actually enjoyed it.

I'm going to be honest, I had a sinking feeling I wouldn't be going back to Oklahoma. I kept telling myself that I would, but I was afraid I wouldn't. I didn't want to tell you what I was thinking, because I thought you wouldn't let me leave if I did. And it's not that I wanted to leave (because I didn't really want to), but I had made a promise. I'm sorry I broke mine to you that I would come back. Extenuating circumstances and all that jazz.

Did you know that the first person I told my mother to call on the night of my wreck was you? I told her "You have to call Fawn, she's going to be pissed." I was so scared that night. I didn't know what was going on and all I could think was that I wanted to die. I was so in and out of it that night and for the remainder of my time in the hospital. I don't remember you or Donnie being there, even though I know you flew out immediately and stayed with me right up until you had Sarai. I know Donnie was there every day, but I don't remember him being there.

I don't remember a lot of what happened then, maybe that is the reason I lost the case so badly (that and a rather bad lawyer). I wish you could've been there. Of course, if you had been you would've been separated from me like Donnie was. I think that made it harder, actually. Not being able to have the two of the strongest people in my life there to help me.

Damn, I'm getting thirsty. Would you like a refreshing drink of "dite cock?" It's fresh, just bought it for 65 cents. It's delicious and refreshing, truly! And we laughed so hard that they changed it.

I'm so happy you came to be with me after the accident. I wish you were still here, though I know I don't need you as much as I did then. But I still dream about you, I still miss you like crazy.

Do you remember when I asked you out? It'll be four years ago March 9th. Can you believe it? You didn't believe me at first. You thought I was joking and even asked Donnie if I was being serious. It was amidst all the Sakuya bullshit, but we made the best of it and I don't regret it. Even though we both kind of forgot about it for a year or two... Because we are the only people I know who could forget that we were dating each other.

The Sakuya shit will have to wait for another day, as will so many other things I want to say. But just know that I love you and, no matter what, I'll stand with you.

I hope that one day, we can get married (and I can still be married to Donnie). I love you.

Love,
Sarai.