September 29, 2001
Letter to Ryan, Never Sent
I am where no one would think to look for me. I used to haunt this place as a child, dressed up in my grandma's curtains and pretending to be a pioneer. I'd collect mulberries and walnuts and wild onions and come here and traipse about as though it were as it used to be, before weather and urbanization got to it. And now I hear the sounds of cars in the distance; and, where once only bales of hay and carriages were kept, I now find metal siding and stainless steel farming equipment.
I don't think I've ever told you about how wonderful my childhood was. But that's gone now, like you are, and I know in my heart that I will never truly encounter either of you again.
I hate my family sometimes. The way we lash out at eachother, the way we stuff all of our anger into 6 rooms. Justin, who thinks only of himself; I, who only pretend to think of others; Mom, who thinks of us only at the times when we don't want her to; and Dad, who sometimes does not think at all. How we loathe eachother.
It's cold here today. And I was thinking how you and I will never share an autumn. It's my favorite season, you know. And you'll miss my birthday, if not forget it entirely. And the day that we will have been together for an entire year; you will miss that.
I think about other guys. And I'm rather mean about it, too, seeing as I don't really want anyone but you. I just wonder if I'm still captivating, moreover, if I ever was.
I think you can't possibly love me. I think I am wasting myself on you, when you cannot muster emotion for me. I don't know who you are. You stopped listening to me ages ago. Now, I am simply routine.
And still I wait for your letter, knowing that it will not suprisingly lack what I need to hear. You don't say what I need to hear anymore. You don't say much at all. I have to beg for your assurances only to find that they do not assure me.
I'm not crying. I feel dead inside. I think that it has only been twelve days, and I think that I will surely be hollow when you return. I have little to look forward to, no one to confide in. Not like you. My bed is cold, as is my body.
astera at twelve in the a.m.