A letter from Jan 25, 2023

Dear FutureMe, Do you remember me? I'm writing for myself, of course, for a promise that I will matter to you. I am young, I am overconfident, I am too bold for my own good, too scared to be real. You are different, but I am a part of you, as the stem is of a flower. Do you remember me? My obsession with writing, my insistence on moving through life with my words, that anything can be poetry if you just let it be. I am here praying that all the time disintegrating has been as the sludge of a chrysalis, not that I will ever emerge and blossom at once, but that one day I really will grow some colors among my wings Do you remember me? I am as real as you. I am as real as a person in a movie, crunching orange leaf. I am shining and dull and everything but contradictions. Do you remember me? I am desperate to be heard, so desperate, and I know I must listen. I really must. I am working to listen, doing my best, which is synonymous with my worst. But I am begging to be heard. Listen to me, ignore me, I will listen to you, I will hang on your words. Do you remember me? Do you a favor, will you. Will you check in with people. Text Jackie, email evans, call your mother. Please please, this is how you can email me back, this is how you can talk to the past. You can finally reach back and help your past self. Check in on them, will you. Just as a favor for me. With love