An Email I Cannot Send You by Matti Blake
Wednesday September 13th, 2022
This shouldn’t feel like this. I’m subconsciously aware that you taking this step away from me shouldn’t feel so cataclysmic. But it does. I have to take scalding hot showers just to feel warm because I haven’t felt warm since I yelled at you for making me too sweaty in your twin xl bed. This isn’t normal depression, where I lay in bed and watch my favorite shows for a week only to get up and move on. I can’t keep any food in my body. It all pours out of me the minute I put it in. No one is concerned because I’m still a size 14 but I can finally fit my thumb and middle finger around my wrist. I’ve been getting high, and you know how I couldn’t handle weed before. Something has to be playing at all times, sometimes two things at once; Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, and repeat. I saw a photo of you wearing my fleece pullover today and it sent me to the bathroom for 30 minutes. I want you to come nap in my bed again, I promise I won’t yell at you for falling asleep and not spending time with me anymore. I won’t get frustrated when you're indecisive ever again if you would just come back. Please just come back. I would be so good and proper and I wouldn’t ask you to stay later than you wanted to even if I feel like my chest is being cracked open with a mallet. I will be good and agreeable and sweet and I’ll never get angry. I know you can’t do it but I feel like if I beg hard enough you would. If I beg hard enough you’d be miserable with me forever and never leave again. I just feel like a trapped animal right now, cornered and wild and fighting for my life. I won’t ask this of you right now but maybe if you see every single thing I post on social media you’ll hear my plea. I get what Gatsby was doing with that stupid green light. I’m shining my green light as bright as I can but I’m not sure you’ll ever see it. I love love love love love you. Love you in a way that makes me want to gnaw my own arm off with my blunt front teeth. Who is going to brush the hair out of my eyes now? Who is going to sit on the toilet while I shower so I don’t feel so dreadful? If no one was sweet enough before you, who will be sweet enough after you? Anyway, I’ll probably keep writing these; either until you come back or I find a way to get over it.
Matti
“I would say I can’t publish this because of how personal it is. I didn’t want to edit the personal pieces out because it’s integral to the story.”
Matti is an aspiring writer from rural Ohio.