Been waiting for you.

Letters

Let's do it inwardly

Beloved below are various letters - all for you, spun in love. Our hearts know the way.

Every image corresponds to a letter. Every letter is an act of my desire simply to be with you, to feel you there on the other end of an invisible line. Navigate these letters intuitively; find an image or expression that resonates with you and begin here. Continue clicking and reading where you feel moved. In this way we are guided; we are connected heart-to-heart, we are communicating through hearts. And darling be it one image, one letter, one encounter or many our connection is a colossal force of happening. I write to you because I care for you. Deeply. Without reserve. It is my wish for you to know my love, to know your great, exuding charm. Newest, most recent letters are near the top.

Now feel that thud; the center of your chest beats. And there too, is our secret. Read blissfully. To me you are breathtakingly perfect.

The Silent Cry of Earth’s Children

BEAUTIFUL,

IWROTE A STORY FOR YOU.

FOR YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING FRIEND. You are the reason I try; You are the Why behind every stunning Achievement without end, without end, without End becoming Beginning again.

///

The Silent Cry of Earth’s Children (A Story for those Who are Ready to Listen)

The Light slips in through the cracks, pierces; kisses the curve of her eyes. She doesn’t understand why they pushed her down, to the ground; so low that she can feel the grass, the cool of the Earth’s dirt, and the hard, compact smack of gravity all along the stretching expanse of her left side.

It hurts.

It hurts so much.

But she refuses to cry, and for a moment more still, she simply refuses to open her eyes.

“Fucking fatty!”

“Fat whore!”

There is a part of her, deep in her stomach, that wants to vomit. It wants whatever this awful feeling is out. But she can’t throw up, that would be dangerous. No –

She has to stay quiet. Silent. Like a mouse. And she thinks of a mouse, a little white mouse with a pink nose, white whiskers. She sees this mouse in her mind’s eye as her body flinches, quivers involuntarily.

“Involuntarily” is a big, hard, mysterious word for a twelve-year-old girl without a proper mother or father, without a proper home of her own. Foster care kids don’t catch the same break as the rest of us, ya know?

“Dumb bitch.”

“Whata ya even doin’ out here? Huh dumb bitch?”

And the two boys taunt her and sneer, because broken, lost boys who have aged out of foster care homes and foster care systems-of-existence, just don’t value the lives they’ve been given, cause the lives they’ve been given don’t seem to value ‘em back, ya know?

She curls into a ball, tighter –

And like a mouse, tries to hide. It’s quite possible her left, little finger is broken. It’s throbbing; white heat and a sting that’s all wrong. But she can’t let them see –

No that would be dangerous. She has to stare off, having opened her eyes –

At the tops of the blades; green, pointed peaks; too many to count and too beautiful to deny –

“Take her money.”

Too beautiful in that the peaks of the green, multitudinous blades seem to catch each finite ray and cast, literally bounce the Light back. “Grass is a sweet, loving thing,” she thinks, because this foster kid thinks within edges and beyond lines. There is this Sense: “I’m going to die.”

“Give us your money fatty.”

Two, broken boys grab her wallet. Rip through its compartments. And when the tears swell, push from inside, bottom ledge of her eyes’ lids –

Quickly, oh-so swiftly – she clamps them shut again.

There is this breath out, and then she must breathe in; her lungs expand with oxygen.

“You running away?”

The bus ticket – in her wallet. They’ve found it.

She’s so grateful for Light –

These last, fading rays of day. She’s grateful for the warmth left pressing on her right cheek, on her arm, on her leg. It feels alive this warmth, it feels like a gift from some other place.

“Bitch speak!”

“Sit the fuck up!”

It won’t be enough. Not the money. Not the bus ticket. Not the clothes in her bag. She can see, perceives the tops of black boots, the tops of red shoes – sneakers; two pairs of two shoes, the bottom halves of two youths. “Youth” is a precarious evanescence, this sparkling period of adolescence; One is caught between two realms. Are they children, or sovereign entities? Are they vulnerable they themselves, or are these two boys aged eighteen old enough to fend, and to mend, to fight and to deliberate, to find for themselves place and prosperity – are they boys or are they men, ya know?

She pulls her knees to her chest. Tighter, she squeezes. Sitting up was tough, but holding back the deluge is harder. Her lower lip trembles. Fear – it is a potent power.

The tears push so strong, that force within is so raw.

Yes, she wants to run. She wants to run farther and further than she has ever run before but she is aware, deep in her intuitive organ. No –

That would be dangerous. These two pairs of shoes – these two boys? Two men?

These two youths; they have a gun.  

There is a weapon with a metal tube through which bullets may be propelled, and by explosive force enter – ripping, tearing and maiming – her flesh; the soft encasing, this divine containment in which she so obediently, as ordered, now sits. Hugging her knees, clenching her teeth, measuring each breath. The sun continues to dip. Most children are at home finishing their dinners, taking their baths, preparing for bed. The hour is late; the grown-ups are tousling their hair, kissing their cheeks, patting their backs. This girl is preparing for death –

As best she can –

For who of Us among all of Us, can prepare to be murdered, violently thrust from the web, ya know? Spacetime is a “web,” stretched out and all connected; human bodies are the confluence of intersecting threads.

The Angel, it says it is with her; invisibly it holds her hand and strokes her head.

It won’t be long now. Soon events will shift; soon the youth to her left will –

Spit: “What the fuck is this!” Blood, from his mouth, spatters across cement.

“Bro what’s up?”

“My fucking tooth – ”

“What?”

“My fucking tooth just chipped. I’m bleeding. Fuck!”

“What?”

“I don’t know – I bit down.”

Too hard. On an infection in his gums. The tooth was weak, rotting tissues weep.

“Really?”

“Yeah! Shut up! Get her fucking money.”

“She doesn’t have any.”

“Where’s your money bitch! Check her pockets!”

Boom. Expand, contract. Boom – her heart, it pulses. Boom. The caterpillar, it munches –further up its leaf. Boom. Waters underground seep further through bedrock, sedimentary sheets. Boom. The clouds, they part – the heavens open; farther she will travel this day called, “May Nineteenth.” Boom. Expand, contract. The voice inside, it squeaks. She shrinks.

The hands, they shove her in the face, break her arm fold open, thrust – one and then another – into the front cavities of her jeans. Boom. Retrieve what means they seek.

“Twenty-two dollars.”

“That’s it! Ain’t no way this dumb bitch thinks she gonna make it all the way to Missoula, Montana on twenty-two dollars.”

Somewhere, in a magazine – a picture has seemed – sweet; like a vision not yet born, like a possibility she could glean. There was this family, with a picnic basket – there was sunlight, trees; they were smiling in this scene. It said, the words etched above their heads, “Come and Visit the Last, Best Place,” then “Ten Day Getaway at Flathead Lake.” The way it made her heart lift up, reach out; there was no plan, there was only hope and reverie found glistening –

Illuminated from within hidden depths of a flat page – a tourism advertisement for cottage cabins astride blue water, astride picnic places for sunny families, vibrant and oh-so “happy.” This word, it means, “favored by luck or circumstance,” and “a feeling of joy, delight or glee.” Certainly –

She understood – there would be no family waiting, but there could be possibly – that feeling. There might be more in the world than the state of misery, of being unwanted, of living unseen and certainly – she could see, for herself, and be for herself a bit more at ease. The money was saved, the closet city with bus passageway identified. And the Runaway was born; birthed from the womb of the desperate and untethered. But Desperate-And-Untethered births more than loneliness, more than ache yearning for place – it births compulsive whims and unbridled acts, so too it births anger –

Demanding restitution.

He’s shaking her too hard, and he’s screaming words her brain won’t translate –

“Where’s the rest of it!”

The Angel, it says We are here and We will carry you. But the metal cold –

Once thrust into forehead, the protruding end of her skull’s bend – feels more real –

And as her ten fingertips – palms down, elbows locked on either side of her ribs – dig; nails sliding into Earth, dirt coming up to meet –

Skin. Grass cool between her thumbs –

It is done.

“Aiden Jesus fucking Christ!”

“I didn’t mean too!”  

“Fuck!”

“I didn’t fucking mean to!”

“Why’d you do that?!”

The reverberation whirs – churns through compression; where density meets velocity, where day and night and light and dark – collide; come to be still, motionless – eventually subside. It is only now a body, left draining; matter devoid of life.

“No – no. No. No. No. No.”

“Shut the fuck up Jackson! Run – ”

And these two boys? Two men? They run. Farther and further than they have ever flown before – deep into the streets of already loveless cities, deep into the recesses of already fractured psyches. Because the gun was loaded; its trigger– like her little finger – busted.

What was meant as a fake threat, to obtain more by boys playing big –

Became consequence; a real debt men can’t outlive. And a dead –

Child. Her name was “Francis.”

Because – no one was watching, was attuning –

Safeguarding.

And it begs the question: “Where are all the adults, ya know?”

///

Dearest Darling,

Do you suppose We can ever do enough to wake the others up? To wake them up and to care profoundly, deeply, irrefutably - about her Children, about her Trees, about her pulsing Waters, about her purest of Breezes sweeping across the faces and the shapeshifting edges of All that has ever Existed?

I think We can.

With Love, your Forever Companion,

 

Photo by SHIRAZ HENRY

Shanna Lodge Evje