Letter

My friend,

I know any non-physical voice in a moment like this feels like a cardboard prop, something far off and far away, but I need you to suspend that filter for a second. I need you to believe that you’re surrounded by sweat fleeing New York City cops with The Strokes. I need you to believe that the rivers and green of West Virginia are still glowing like a freshly struck bell. I need you to believe that you’re walking through a windswept section of Edinburgh, Scotland picking away at some fresh fish and chips before coming to a slow stop to wait for the bus. I need you to believe that the injury that sits at a ghost’s distance from our conception of doing good by each other isn’t forever out of reach, and that somewhere in our lungs is a breath deep enough to fill us up and send the haunting away.

Yours,
Evan

(Photo via. Original letter published in a small digital chapbook put together by Matthew Burnside.)