Don't Forget.

Dear FutureMe, Do not forget. Do not forget that I am writing this at 6:22 AM, unable to sleep the night before. Do not forget that I am writing this a second time, because it was deleted by the ever-hungry internet, and you nearly cried when almost 500 of your most beautiful words confessing to yourself were erased faster than you could blink. Do not forget how it feels to be utterly disappointed. Truly and literally homeless. Do not forget how it felt when Ryan broke your heart. Don't let him forget, either. Don't forget embarrassing and hasty sex in the bright and unforgiving light of morning, when all at once every daydream you ever had came true. Don’t forget him holding you against the cool tiles, his freckles, hot skin, bad kissing, and terribly crushing moments of pure tenderness he himself didn’t notice, but you clung to, even after he had already turned his back on you. Do not forget how disgustingly humiliated you felt when you knew you had confessed too much, too fast. Do not forget how disgusted and broken you felt when another woman spent the night in the bed you slept in so soundly. Do not forget your first night of Deering, December 2008, driving around between the hours of two and four in the morning in Jonathan's stick-shift Geo, making the decorative Christmas deer of Lakeland buttfuck. Do not forget getting high and watching the sunrise all alone. Do not forget how it feels to finish a poem and not even remember starting it. Don’t forget crying, more than once, in the AP art room, and how it felt to have your art tribe gather around, and pick up your pieces to put them back together into something that was almost pretty. Do not forget the days and nights at Dom’s house, your first fish, playing Craig’s new piano, cuddling the Sway, watching ‘your boys’ play The Metal and Cliffs of Dover over and over, and eating Mommy’s coffee/biscottis/stuffed peppers/cheesecake. Don’t forget for a single second how it feels to be utterly and wholly accepted by a family that is not your own, even when you are blazed at the dinner table when Mommy’s new firefighter boyfriend came over. Never forget how it feels when the bong, heavy and cool, stuffed with ice, is headed your way. Never forget your first smoke. Nicotine buzz. Bud Light Lime. Never forget that for a second, even if it was only a second, he might have loved you. Don’t forget how it felt when your father confessed he didn’t go to your graduation and started crying over the phone that Thanksgiving. That Thanksgiving, the first you didn’t spend with your family. That Thanksgiving when you were finally brave enough to call him and tell him you forgave him. When you were finally strong enough to hear his tired voice. When you finally had enough courage to tell him, “I love you still, no matter what.” Do not forget pacing your mom’s wet, cold, musty basement, the phone so hot it’s making the side of your face wet, but you don’t care. Don’t forget how excited you get when you talk to him. Prague. Star gazing. Man-eating sandwiches. Transcendentalism. Do not forget how Michael Demalignon speaks of the universe, and how you love him. Do not forget leaving the first home you made on your own for a winter alone. Do not forget how much you love the Mintles. Don’t forget your aunt’s sacrifices, big and small, her big heart, big hugs, and big faith that you are more than just the fuck-up you’ve been proving yourself to be lately. Don’t forget the hopelessness. Don’t forget rolling your first joint, your first blunt, your JellyBaby. Don’t forget your first pack of cigarettes, even though you were almost nineteen, and how sinful you felt when you smoked that first one. Don’t forget the light-up ducky, smoking in the rain outside of CVS, MC Chris and Anthony Green. Don’t forget shoplifting from Busch Gardens, and smoking pot in their family bathroom. Don’t forget chasing Buddy dog up the sand hills. Do not forget that exact moment you knew that they really truly cared about you. When you had been sitting alone in a backyard for four hours in the dark and they came and got you, and yelled at you for not calling earlier. Because no matter what they were doing, they would have come and gotten you- “it’s what friends do!” Do not forget Anna Maria in January. How the horizon was nonexistent that morning- the sky and the earth and the ocean seemed to blend together into a fuzzy line, and we felt invincible as we shivered in the sand and watched the sun come up. Do not forget singing at the top of your lungs, hair whipped in the wind, completely in love with the boy who is driving. All of the boys who were driving you, that year. Taking you with them, accepting you on their journeys, into their lives. Teaching you their language, what it means to be small. Never forget when you knew they were going to take you on the ride of your life. Never forget how good it fucking feels to cuss and really, really, fucking mean it. Don’t forget how it is killing you to be apart from them for the first time since you’ve known them, fearing they’ll forget you. Because by now you’ll now if they have or not. I can’t imagine the state you are in right now, I really can’t I have no plans for you, future self, only clear fears and dim hopes. Will you be in school yet? Employed? In love..? If, by the time you read this again, you haven’t given Ryan that fucking mix CD, you better. You better let him know exactly how cheap and used and empty you felt, sitting on that wall outside his house, smoking his cigarette, cold and alone and hollow. You better tell him how you loved him. What is in store for us? This weird, bent girl I am now, and my future self? I don’t even know who I am anymore, how can I possibly know who I will be? Some people who have plans, they can at least estimate. How do I even know I will be alive in a year? This is like sending a message in a bottle into a trash compacter and hoping it comes out whole. Who will I be? Will I even be able to answer that question? Mostly, I want to tell you not to forget for one burning reason. This is the first year in your life you have actually lived. And you can consider that two ways: -It took you almost two decades to figure out the prism of your emotions. DAMN, girl, took you long enough. -You have found out, while you are still young, what many adults still search for- agonizing, torturous, overwhelming LIFE. It leaves you burnt, writhing, crying, screaming, shuddering, shaking, and quivering with so many different kinds of desire you never even knew they needed words for. I want to tell you DON’T FORGET! DO NOT FORGET THIS YEAR! I want to tell you not to forget because once you grow and become old and withered, that is it. And not withered in the physical sense. Withered at age 35, when all you’re worried about is your mortgage and life insurance and babysitters. Don’t grow, burn it down! Burn it down and live every single fucking day cursing, soaking up the sun and the THC and the love and the family that isn’t family. Don’t forget while you are living that you should be actually living! The mundane tasks everyone else thinks is important? Don’t forget to examine them yourself and figure out if they really matter to you or if they are something you won’t even cry or laugh or scream or blush or grin about later. CUSS AND FUCK AND GRIND AND TASTE AND KISS AND DANCE AND SING AND SCREAM AND HURT AND BLEED everything out of life. Offend and ravish and paint! Have sex whenever you want to. Do things that are bad for you BECAUSE they are bad for you. Smoke to die. Kill little parts of you and live to tell the tale. Because without suffering, what the fuck is it all for? Why do we avoid pain, when without it, everything is bland and slimy, like noodles with no sauce? Yes, cry. Oh, yes, it hurts and it feels like you’re drowning. But how else will you truly know what is good and kind and pure and euphoric? How else do you know when you have created a heaven and a haven for yourself without a hell? How else will you even know you fucking EXIST? That is how you discovered everything bent and disgusting about yourself. By discovering everything that is to be worshipped and loved and cherished about yourself. You can plant those seeds and let them grow. Because they grow no matter how much pain there is around you, eclipsing your smile for the moment. Or maybe they grow stronger because of it. I have so many things to say to you, Melinda Marie Romana Scott- but really only one thing that will always matter: Don’t forget.