Prompt #13
The Letter: Write a poem or story using words from a famous letter or inspired by a letter someone sent you.
E.G
“I know you might not read this after everything.
I want you to know I wanted to tell you, I did.
But I didn’t because I was afraid you would understand. I guess this proves it.
I need you to know I never meant for it to happen,
it didn’t mean anything to me. Lyd. I promise.”
Why does this feel familiar… Lydia pulled the device away from her face. She’d only made it a paragraph into the letter-long message when a wave of nostalgia so strong washed through her.
Where have I seen this before? Her cellphone slumped into her lap while she dove sidelong into the feeling of I’ve been here before. And all at once. It swallowed her whole. her attention.
Ten years earlier…
“Don’t be the one who closes the door,
don’t be the one who says no more.
Don’t be like everyone else…”
Blah blah blah…
Don’t feed my heart disease?… What the heck? Really Craig. Did Rodney help you with that line?
Lydia stopped reading. Typical. She chuckled at the thought. The mood softened its hold around her jaw. She bit a lower lip to keep the smart-ass comment bubbling up behind its barrier.
She rolled her eyes, blowing off steam. He will probably take this one to the band board. Turn it into an Eff you Lydia you heartbreaking whore ballad. He’d always wanted to make one. He’d told her so. Her eyes traced over the trash lines and spilled over the side of the three neatly folded notebook papers she was holding loosely between her fingers.
His handwriting was nicer. She noticed. His rhyming is, childish. But then, so was the notion he was leaving on her table.
Don’t be like everyone else and leave me? Um, well, do you lie to everyone else the way you lie to me? If that’s the case, they did the only intelligent thing.
She tossed the pages onto her comforter and sprawled out on the bed surrounding her and the love note. She didn’t care so much about what he was doing. It was the how and the why that made this piece of poetry especially difficult to read.
How easy it had been for him to lie was a red flag on its own, but the why, his version was empty, weightless. She was closing the door from the outside, leaving him to himself in a home he never made her feel welcome in. All she was doing was making her way off the porch. He’d closed the door and locked it, the crazy thing was he seemed completely unaware he’d been talking to her through a window the whole time.
Lydia sat up on the bed and crawled to the edge to grab her own notebook. She stretched as far as she could reach and then fell over to the side grabbing for her favorite pen.
“Dear Craig,
I am not leaving you because I caught you dealing cocaine out of your parents’ basement without them being aware of it. I am leaving because you lied to me. I have enough liars in my life. Myself included. I don’t need the extra encouragement in that direction. Thanks, for the poem. I am sending it back since you clearly wrote it for yourself and not me. On a positive note, I think you have a bright future in the country or indie musical industries based on the style and structure.
Best,
Lyde”