Yeah, this is mostly here for me, not you. I wanted to have the letters that I wrote for this challenge somewhere on my blog but they kind of suck. Hence, this page. Linked posts are still posted.
The Letters:
Dear Humanity,
I hate you and I hope you die.
Dear Austin,
Three days in the Grand Canyon. Three years would’ve been better.
Love,
Lucy
Dear…The Same Person As Yesterday,
Ugh, that was a mistake. A stupid mistake made under the influence…
of Elena Perez.
I don’t even know what it was like! How sad is that? Were you a good kisser? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just…ugh. I wish I could be writing this to someone else.
Love,
Lucy
Dear E,
Your friends are jackasses. Embarrassing, annoying, immature, irritating jackasses. You’re not. I’m sorry. If I could erase everything they did from November until now, I would. Then I would give you a second chance. It’s too late now, though.
Love (kinda),
Lucy
Dear Darien,
Before meeting you, I thought you were a nerd. Now that we’re bffls, I know you’re a nerd. But a good nerd. <3
Love,
Lucy
Dear Enzo,
It’s lame, but I still think about you sometimes. I…
I was gonna say something.
But all I care to remember about you is that I liked the way you spoke French.
Bye.
(No) Love (at all),
Lucy
Dear JGL,
I think you’re creative and sexy and funny and enthusiastic. I love your waistcoats. I love your singing. I’d like you to be sixteen years younger…but until that happens I guess I’ll stick to daydreams.
Love,
Lucy
Dear (Hopefully) Future Lucy,
It is midnight. You are about twenty-four and living in a shitty Manhattan apartment. You roommate is at work. You are watching an old rerun of either Malcolm in the Middle, That ’70s Show, or Glee. It has been a long day of editing poetry and short-shorts for your soon-to-be published anthology (you are a fairly well-known writer around these parts), and you’ve changed into a red camisole and soft pajama pants. You are eating greasy popcorn with one hand and and smoking with the other because your thirteen-year-old self thought it would look funny. The door opens and your roommate walks in, who is a Joseph Gordon-Levitt look alike. How convenient! Hell, he might as well be Joseph Gordon-Levitt; this scenario is awesome enough already. He is wearing a waistcoat because those things are extremely sexy, and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. You scoot over to make room for him on the couch. He loosens his tie and collapses next to you. Somehow he is so attractive he makes the popcorn-and-cigarettes combo look sexy. You sit on the couch with him and watch TV all night long.
Then you have crazy sex because he’s hot and you’re legal.
Just kidding.
Love,
Present Lucy (who can’t wait for the future)
Dear Hannah,
What can I say? We’ve been friends since the beginning of time. I honestly can’t imagine what my childhood would have been like without you and your family. What would have happened to those months when all ten of us crammed into your apartment? The summer days spent at the beach, in the pool, in front of the TV, on the roof? Our “study sessions”? Our actual study sessions filled way too much actual studying? You’ve given me some of my favorite memories, and I can honestly say all the warm, beachy days we spend together in NJ are the absolute best. Never ever leave (until you go to college), okay? I’m counting down the days until summer.
Love,
Lucy
PS. Remember at 89 when you were in 1st grade and I was in kindergarten and you would always give me a high five when you walked past in the lunch line? Yeah. That was awesome.
Dear Nina,
The first and last time we hung out was three years ago exactly. I still remember talking to you about Zoey 101 as we walked the switchbacks into the Grand Canyon. It was effortless, being around you. I think we probably would’ve grown a lot closer, had I not had a massive, rather distracting crush on Austin. Do you remember him? He was fourteen and from New Jersey and extremely attractive…see, there’s me getting distracted by Austin again. God. Now you’re in Honolulu and I’m in the mainland and we barely ever talk because of the goddamn time difference and I want to visit you and you want to visit me and we fucking can’t.
I miss you a lot. We probably don’t have anything in common anymore, anyway. Except for Zoey 101.
Love,
Lucy
Dear Alicia,
I want to talk to you but we don’t have anything left to say. Even this letter is short and shitty and pointless. I’m sorry. I miss you. I hope Adriane is healthy.
Love,
Lucy
Eh, fuck you.
Day 13: N/A
Dear Former Best Friend,
I’m not writing to you because I hate you. In fact, I’m trying to stop hating you and everyone else. For the past few years I’ve been filled with a lot of unjust, blind anger. Anger not for anyone who had actually done me wrong, but for people who were a little ditzy or irritating or jealousy-inducing. And I think all of that really needs to get out of my mind, out of me…even if it’s directed towards someone who deserves it. So no, I don’t hate you.
But I can’t deny that you caused me a lot of pain. That’s always going to be there. I can’t just look at you and see just another face. I mean, I don’t care for you anymore. Honestly, you could fall off the face of the Earth and you wouldn’t have to worry about what I was thinking. It’s just that there was a time when I did care about you. You were my best friend. And you left me. And I’m still trying to recover from that.
Until very recently, I hadn’t had a best friend since you. Why do you think that is? Do you think I might have been terrified of caring too much for someone, because eventually they were going to leave me? Do you think I might have wanted to avoid coming across as needy? I wonder where those fears came from. Why do you think I’m always tired in school, with stomachaches and backaches galore? Why do you think I spent my entire seventh grade year locked inside my notebooks and my head? Honestly. Honestly. Think about it for a moment. Maybe you’re not the fuel of all this bullshit, but you were certainly the trigger. I never felt like this before that day in the middle of the winter when you scowled instead of smiled.
Remember, I don’t hate you. I don’t even really care about you. But I spent months crying over you, dear, and I’m never going to get those months back.
Love,
Lucy
Dear Pop-Pop,
I have to tell you a secret. When I was about seven or eight years old, I made a wish about you that was really really really bad. I mean I didn’t know I was such a fucked up child. And it’s not like I made the wish and then a drumbeat later was engulfed in remorse and spent the rest of my life repenting for my sins, becoming a nun, preaching abstinence, never taking the Lord’s name in vain, etc. etc. (I don’t know where all of that came from. You weren’t Christian, and I’d heard you taking the Lord’s name in vain several a time.)
Here. I wished that you would just hurry up and die so that I could stop visiting you. Every time my dad and my brother and I went into your house that smelled like dogs and sat on those holey armchairs and then drove out to the only restaurant we ever went to and ordered the same thing and then came back and had a lickity little chat with your two children who still lived with you and then drove home in the car that uses way too much gas to the apartment that you couldn’t visit anymore;
…every time we cycled through that it was all horribly depressing for me, as a fucked up little seven-or-eight-year-old.
So I wished you would hurry up and die. Three or four years later, you did. I was on Neopets and my dad came home and said, “Pop-Pop’s dead,” but I didn’t hear him because I was busy with my goddamn Faerie Cloud Racers or some shit. See, that’s how much I didn’t care about you. I played Faerie Cloud Racers instead of grieving about your death.
I mean, I did cry later. Your son and I took a walk and I cried and cried and sat down on a bench and cried some more. But I think that was mostly because my dad lost his dad. And I never want to lose my dad.
So the reason I wrote this long-ass letter that skirted around the edges of nothing was to say I’m sorry for not being sorry. I mean, I fucking wished that you were dead. Personally, being dead doesn’t matter much to me, but I know for some people it’s a bit of an issue. And I know that you didn’t have much to live for anymore - your wife died a year beforehand after a ten-year battle with Alzheimer’s, your health was terrible, you had nothing to occupy your time with - but it’s gotta sting to have your tiny, tiny granddaughter wishing you dead. Even if it was your age, and not me, who killed you. So I’m sorry for not loving you, really, at all.
I’m not sorry I made that wish, though. If I were, I wouldn’t be writing this letter.
Love,
Lucy
Dear Mazzy,
alskdlklkjfskdljflalskdlj. The title is pretty self-explanatory.
Love,
Lucy
Dear Oliver,
Elena has told me a lot of things about you, namely how you and I are apparently the exact same person (her words, not mine). She said that you’re funny and goofy and awesome and that I would love you.
Anyway, Oliver has been my favorite name since I was eight. I like brown hair and usually people that Elena befriends are decent at worst. Maybe you have green eyes. I kind of sorta maybe want to meet you someday…but how exactly would that happen?
Love,
Lucy
Dear Lisa,
You. Kick. Ass.
Thank you for kicking ass.
Congratulations on all the ass you kick.
I hope you continue to kick ass for the rest of your life.
Love,
Lucy
PS: Thanks for providing sage advice and feedback on writing and awesome That ’70s Show blogs, too (though of course all that shit falls under the ass-kicking category :3)
Dear Dylan,
When people ask if I’ve ever had a boyfriend, I say no.
Love (me not),
Lucy
Dear Person I Saw on the Street With My Mother When I Was Seven,
I still remember you. I can’t remember where I was walking to or how cold the air was or the things I was thinking about, but I remember looking up and seeing you. Way up because you were very tall, and your heels made you taller. I thought you were weird. I’m sorry. It’s not because you’re weird that you’ve stuck with me for this many years. Actually, I’m not sure why you’ve stuck with me for this many years.
I can’t remember the exact details, but you had on a black wig, a lot of reddish makeup, heeled boots, and either a dress or a skirt. You were tall, like I mentioned, and your tallness made you walk with an awkward gait that couldn’t quite pass under the radar. You had slight, dark stubble on your chin and your nose was large and hooked. Your nose is what gave it away to me.
We were walking towards each other on the sidewalk. You didn’t look at me, but that’s okay; I didn’t expect you to. When you had walked passed us, my mom turned to me and asked,
“Did you see that lady?”
And I said,
“Yes, it was a man.”
Or something along those lines. It was a long time ago, and I just remember looking at you, not what I said afterward.
What disturbs me is how easily I came to the conclusion that you were not normal. I mean, I labeled you a pariah, a freak, an anomaly the second I walked passed you. Me, a seven year old, someone who’s not supposed to know how to hate.
In fourth grade I forced myself to stop saying that’s so gay. Every time those words almost slipped out of my mouth, I wanted to smash my head into the ground. In my mind, I repeated, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. Gay people are people, too. Saying that’s so gay is wrong. Being mean to gay people is wrong. By the time I got to fifth grade, that’s so gay had been eliminated from my vocabulary. I did that on my own.
In seventh grade I learned the word transgender. I’m proud to say that I didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction. I’m proud to say that I didn’t have to tell myself there’s nothing wrong with being transgender; transgender people are people, too; being mean to transgender people is wrong over and over again to be honestly and completely okay with it.
I just wish I could’ve walked passed you when I was a seventh-grader, not a seven-year-old.
Anyway, I’m sorry. I hope that you have scraped together the funds for an operation, that you’ve continued identifying as whatever binary or non-binary gender you are, or that you still dress in a way that makes you feel lovely. Whichever one of the three applies to you. And I hope you’re comfortable with yourself.
It took me six years, but I accepted you for who you are. I hope everyone else will, too.
Love,
Lucy
Dear Cigarettes,
Please stop cropping up in my feeble mind while I sleep. Last night I got to breathe in your smoke and blow it out like a cloud; last week your asses were littered all over the ground. Last year you weren’t even a speck in my eye. Why did you suddenly decide to tag along in Queen Mab’s carriage? It’s not like I even really enjoy you that much. You just keep resurfacing and resurfacing in new annoyingly tantalizing ways.
Anyway, if you continue to force yourselves into my sleeping brain, please try a little harder to blend in. Natalie is the last girl in the world to smoke, and the ocean of cigarettes was a little overdone.
Love,
Lucy
Dear Alex,
You irritate me to no end and enjoy the fact that you do. Even though I’ll never admit it, thanks for introducing me to Glee (it doesn’t suck as much dick as I thought it would). You’re seventeen years old and still tell Mommy when I say “fuck,” which makes me laugh. You’ve never drank or smoked and for that I’m damn proud of you, and for that I think you’re damn frigid. I’m still trying to figure out your sexual orientation and wonder why neither boys nor girls appeal to you. I can’t wait for you to go to college. I’ll miss you when you go to college.
Love,
Lucy
Dear My Mom and Dad,
I love you. Sorry for being fucked up.
Love,
Lucy
Dear Hot Guy That Doesn’t Talk To Me,
You have cute hair, protruding shoulder blades, nice forearms, and a lovely voice. Most of the girls in the grade want you, and I’m betting that a couple guys do, too. Basically, you’re sex on legs.
And that’s about it.
Love (only no, not really, not at all),
Lucy
Dear Best Friend,
I’m not really sure who you are. Some days it’s one person, some days it’s another…some days I hate everyone. Some days everyone hates me. I’ve got one person in mind while I write this, but if they were to write a letter, who would they be thinking of?
I’m not really sure who you are, but I definitely know who you’re not.
Love,
Lucy
