Spirals and Capitals: Like the Twist of a Script

moving forward by ian rica roxas

to someone who always understood my jokes,

how silly and new we were as freshmen year roommates. listening to those 80s songs on our computers. our hammock and Siamese fighting fish, bivens. our window that was a shortcut to the walkway and that terribly ridiculous picture of us with side ponytails. you helped me hide in closets from boys. you always came with me to eat quesadillas. you were a wonderful roommate.

I remember the following year I would start painting and fall in love and make new friends and I would miss laughing with you. and that the following summer, though our lives so separate, you would let me stay in your room since I had none and we would talk through books in that group at the church. you would, also, give me a ride to the airport, on my way to texas and to see the boy i loved so much. I remember you had me listen to your favorite rhett miller song, "am i gonna be lonely for the rest of my life". and as those words spilled from the speakers, i was so full and so in love, and your life seemingly so different, i couldn't even hear them or relate.

And, oh, had I known. that god has a strange sense of humor like my father. or it is more as josh ritter sings, that he is a drunkard for pain. perhaps i would have known that 6 months later that boy would leave me and i would fall apart. that then we would begin performing songs together, and you would help me play those very love songs i had written for him. and i would have known that you would become as happy as i was, and maybe far more so. that you would begin to date that same boy. that you would then be the one who flew across across the country to see him. that i would begin avoiding all those weddings of our friends where he and you would be together. that, eventually, one of those weddings, would be yours, and his.

I know we all change. I know we rarely can choose who we love. I know you will love him very well. I am not angry.

And as I drive towards the mountains through a wordless world the day after Christmas, I am still full as I once was, and maybe more so now. of memories of you. memories of him. of a bittersweet sense of irony and imagining my life better because of you both.
your roommate,
ashley

"We'll climb another roof top, and scare the crooks away. A gypsy and a singer..."

dear (dear) friend,

We met for the first time singing other people’s songs and drinking coffee. And it was then and on purpose that I asked you walk me to my car. Beginning my memories of you with simplicity and shifting feet. Later that year, we would drive across the county lines for adventure and friendship. Exploring the carlisle mountains. searching through bookstores. And living our own dreams of being a writer. a musician. someone famous or loved.

I believe I was more truthful with you than I have been with most. in that terrifying and honest moment, months later, when I told you I wanted only to be your friend. Fearing with unbearable certainty, that the sudden spilling of those platonic words, would take away the sacredness of all our memories together.

I am, perhaps and at times, sorry I met you as careless and unsettled woman, saying no to everyone, to anyone I could, to you. Maybe it was that you always reminded me of someone else I used to know. Someone else who broke my heart. Maybe my cheap perceptions couldn’t pass through that ghost behind your face. Maybe it was that you questioned christianity. Though now I might say that makes you all the more beautiful.

Nevertheless. The reasons I said no, or said anything at all, did not, for me, dismiss the happiness of our time together. I found, eventually, that that conversation would pass and we would still be good friends, though the fear of mixed messages and the pride of being pursued kept me from saying how much I admired you. You are a good and brave man. You sent me a children’s book and gave me your headphones. You brushed the hair from my eyes on that street with the ice cream shop. You to took my picture. You made me feel adored. You are part of my story and I won't forget.

ashley

All the Girls and Their Secret Ways, All the Girls Who Have Gone Astray

here's one of my many stethoscopes...shhh. listen.

be careful

If the Best is For the Best, Then the Best Can be Damned

I will begin these letters, with a letter about a letter....

dear first love,
The year I was smitten by the poet at school and I learned how to drop leaves by doors for others to pick up. The year I took my first prescribed depression medication and I painted my friends nude to tell their stories for them. at the end of that year, you wrote me a letter. at the end of that year and you were standing there. actually. there. thinking better of giving it to me, but still you did. and i couldn't believe you. not really. I wanted to ask you where you had gone all those years back. why you hadn't written or wanted to meet. i wanted to tell you were too late. that i had loved you. and that my heart had broken and mended with string so tight it wouldn't let you in. again. That my love was buried too deep by then. you see. Beneath all that silence and space. oceans and oil paints. New loves. newer heartbreaks. so I buried your letter and told you I wasn't interested. I loved you safely because I was scared. I loved you not enough to get hurt. as best I could. at arms distance. as a brother, i would later say. I laughed at your jokes. bought a new raincoat. told you stories about what my life had been like between then and now.

(It's now that I see we loved each other at different times. and maybe the same times. only became too good at hiding it, you and i. keeping it from the ourselves. from each other. like a secret. or a daydream. )

4 years later and yesterday I found your letter, looking for Christmas ornaments in boxes I rarely open. Discovered, along with it, that you were married last month and had these lines at the corners of your mouth. I wanted you to know. The letter didn't bring me back to you, as maybe, once long ago you had hoped it would. Rather, it did something altogether different. It reminded me that I was worth it once. That I still am. That love should fold maps, thread through time, makes fools of us all. That it's that kind of love that, in the end, will remind me over again of my story. my worth. my redemption. that will give me the courage to speak the truth about how much love that I. you. all of us. deserve. I will also admit that the letter and following discoveries evoked, for a brief moment, phrases, true or socially acceptable...i am too late. the best is for the best. congratulations. But these do not speak total truth or real honesty, nor do I know if that is possible. So, instead, I will say thank you. thank you for reminding me of what I deserve. Your letter had a purpose and I'm glad you gave it to me.
I wanted you to know.
Thank you,
ashley

One Certain Letter: An Autobiography About Finding Home

movement. by maya newman

"And angels everywhere were in my midst. The ones I loved and the ones that I'd kissed"

I've been looking for home all my life. And here, the home I've found, I've found in people. Ones I laughed among. Ones I barely met. Ones I loved. Ones I kissed. I have decided over the next several months, to write a series of letters to honor the weight of these homes. these people. These letters will be written as my way of threading through. holding on and letting go. being thankful or grieving. remembering. As a way of saying what I would have said, had the words come out right in the moment. As a way of speaking to those who I have lost touch with or just lost. They will be addressed anonymously in order to hold in a single hand, my complete honesty alongside respect for each addressees' new story. new lives. new loves. etc.

So, friends. I hope you will read on and, perhaps, resonate with one certain letter. recognizing your story has found its way inside of mine.

.

They sparkle, bubble over and in the morning, all you got is rain....