Dear J.,
We speak not in code, but through it, the 0s and 1s cradling our missives like an ocean. So much wetness, but no meaning diluted—unlike in this letter, where I tuck the truth into the white spaces between syllables the way a spoon nestles against other spoons in a drawer. Do you know what I’m saying to you? It’s incredible, isn’t it, how people can touch without meeting? The goddamn internet—what a cipher. And music, too. Full catalogs of angst I’m not allowed to quote from, and really it’s fine because what place does angst have here, in the stolen ether of a message box dripping, positively dripping, with every form of glee? Throaty laughter, gooseflesh synchronicity, the chime of a notification that reminds me I have a body below the margins of a shared photograph—thank you for your openness that doesn’t intrude, but leads me by the hand as if onto a dance floor. It’s just that I don’t trust people in real life, don’t let them touch or see me, but like a lonely spy I watch everyone, and want to connect. Somewhere in a web made of ocean, I uncovered something that looks like trust and rhymes with it, too. The 0s and 1s carry words on their backs, zing them all over the world and into our skin, yours and mine and everyone’s. If there was a word for this phenomenon, I’d tattoo it on my wrist, take a picture of it, fire it off to you, and beg for approval I can smell.
xo S
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another writing mom 