Strangers.

Strangers. (in four)

#1.

September 1st

Mama I met a man today. He weren’t like no other man I’d met before. Told me I was a pretty girl and that it wasn’t proper for me to be living how I am. Told me he was going to help me out if I wanted to help myself. Promise to me that he’d see this letter finds you. And oh mama he told me, I ought to get back home to y’all as soon as I was able to. Mama I’m so scared on my own. And I don’t know how to get back to the house without help. It’s been too long and all that I done was so very wrong. Without you there’s no where else to go in this world for me.

September 22nd

Mama its been three weeks now that I’ve been talking to this man and he tells me that it’s important I make amends with you and get back home. See this man he is so very generous not like the other. He wasn’t the least bit worry about my kind when he stopped on the street that day and that were peculiar cause people like him don’t usually stop. Not to talk to me. And he wanted to talk to me. Cause see here’s the thing, I’m sick. Mama, I’m real sick and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about these things as a little girl. But there’s no other way I can survive on my own without living like this. And this man, he tells me that he knows all this. Says that the lady at the hospital told him about my sickness cause I go in three times a week for medicine. It feels so good when they have enough medicine and they don’t always.

September 30th

Mama the man that visits me gives me the medicine and then he tells me not to worry about getting more. He has arranged a place for me to stay in. It’s a shelter that is on Fifth Street by the hospital. It’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Mama he tells me that he’s given you my letters and that you are reading them and that I should continue. Mama, are you still mad at me? Why haven’t you responded? Please Mama, they tell me I don’t have a lot of time left now. They keep telling me that the sickness is progressive and degenerative. I don’t know what it means, but I know that there isn’t much time left. Although they tell me that I’m not dying, I can’t help thinking this is almost over now. The pain is constant and the pills are the only thing that makes it hurt less. The man keeps insisting that I stay and take the pills. I know I can’t change your feelings, it’s just that the only thing I regret was leaving home. Leaving you. Please let me come home now. I don’t want to die here, alone. I love you. Goodbye.

#2.

September 15th

Charles, my dearest child

It’s been nearly thirteen years since I’ve written a note or letter to anyone, but there’s a man that tells me it’s something that is necessary in my present state of affairs. He’s been staying in the home for two weeks now and talking to this younger child about her condition. I doubt he’s completely illuminated the situation for her. She’s is going to die soon. He’s been encouraging her to write to her family as a means of closure. Promises that her letters will reach home before too long and never tells her that no one cares where she’s at or how she is doing. It’s in that lesson that I’ve decided to talk with you. Since I’ve been in this home for the dying I’ve seen too many come and go without leaving behind something for their loved ones. In this, I feel it is necessary for you to understand my choices in this life. It was never through a lack of love or understanding that I chose this path over you. You can not think that I wanted to sell myself over having a life with you and your mother. Please listen, these people that have come across my path haven’t been all bad, but they aren’t all good either. You can’t think the conditions of my lifestyle were any better or worse than your own. However understand this is not a choice I want for you. I am a product of my own greed and necessity to want instead of give. Do not make the same mistake as I. The value of selling your skin is less than the price of a hot meal or a warm bed for the night. Yes, your body is your skin. Skin is merely skin in the end. In the dark, that’s all they care about. There’s nothing more to be said when skin is all they want. And now that I’m old and aging faster my only asset is fading quickly. It’s not your mind they will want in the dark end of the bargain it’s just the skin. Mine is now the color of rotting blood and continually deteriorating thanks to this disease. A choice I’ve made that is now illuminated for many to see and judge me by it. I will gladly take their prejudice and yours. Anything to prevent others from following my path. Charles, my son, please do not come to my grave or mourn my life. As your father it’s all I can ask of you. I’ve no regrets my son. It is in the example of my failed life that I hope that I’ve affected others and helped them to change. There’s no comfort in the end other than knowing that someone else can find the peace and comfort that I could not for so very long. Make certain that every price you pay in this life is worth the cause you believe in. Look after your mother. With love. Goodbye son.

#3.

September 8th

JJ you bastard where have you been? You’re the last friend I knew before I was dying. Dying like this by the hand of the substance I profited from. Tell me JJ, are you alive or did you drain out from the pureness of the substance? If you’re alive then you should know where I’m at. At this house of dying and soon dead. Not that it matters, but there’s a man with a few words that remind me to say my goodbyes to anyone that will listen. He gives you the pills to forget the pain if you write these letters. It hurts like hell so I write. I’ve written to anyone and everyone who will listen.

Filthy whores. Beautiful madonnas that I pretended to love. Men that wanted but had nothing to give for it. Then came the ones in the end that will let you down the worst if you let them. The ones sometimes called family. Selling. Buying. Trading. Almost never do you trade something for nothing. Skin is nothing. I can’t see the point in this. But… Don’t get me wrong it was fun all those years with the price of it all. But my substance came more and more with willingness than intent. Until it became a sole purpose to hurt them. Maniacal in pursuit to destroy anyone and everyone that I dealt with. Where does this pursuit involve my past and my future death? The past is where I’ve damned everyone to follow into my death and the future where I have to try to stop the destruction from coming by any means.

In the end begins the question of what matters most. The profit or the price of that profit. My enterprise is my addiction and soon my death. I can only do right by those that are left. If I can’t stop this from coming then I’ve damned not only myself but anyone else who followed. The man with the price of peace hands me more and more paper and all I can do is try to make right by these words that are left behind. JJ there is nothing left of my empire. I can not leave you money or substance to work with.

Please stay alive and work with me to find the others before it is too late. The addiction is unstoppable. It can not be appeased. A child in this death house passes slowly by the hand of my sin. Her body wastes away by the price of this disease. I‘ve sent out a thousand of these messages. The man swears that at least one person will get the message and find a way to warn the others. I need another pill and he needs another letter. Another hour and then another before the pills run out and I fall victim to the disease I help to spread in my blind pursuit of greed. JJ, please be well in your remaining life. I hope more than any of the other messages that this reaches you alive without the disease and able to find peace without the addiction. Take Care. Friend. Goodbye.

#4.

This is sometimes called a death house. It is hospice. A place for the dying to pass in quiet. In this place there is a hope for hopeless without another place to go. There is no other bargain for them to make. Only to reach out one last time. When they come here I tell them to release themselves from the past. Reach to those from your life in some manner. Send your past filled with these ones a small note. Let them see that you confess your crimes. Then and only then can I provide for your suffering. Life is significant. Big or small. This makes no difference to the reaper. These are deadly times and I can not help those who do not want to be saved. Take another pill. Tell the others not to worry. Here in this place there is no modern medicine to stop the crimes against humanity. To stop the damage that these people have caused each other in this life. I tell the frightened child who left her home in haste to ask her mother for forgiveness. I insist that the man who prostituted himself to the very depths of depravity for a few dollars to seek contrition from the family he abandoned. I beg the profiteer of disease to try and put an end to the spread of his destruction before his own hand removes the life he no longer wishes to live. They suffer by their own choices and are consumed by the pains of their slow death. There is no redemption for them in the end of this life only the hope of peace before it comes. I can only help to provide these small tokens that bring little comfort. There is no true cure for this. I can see them clothed, sheltered and medicated but nothing more. This is but a small act that when their acts are far larger in retrospect.



Letters. Strangers. Friends. Aren't we all. All interconnecting in this fishbowl called the world. Anyhow... currently have the feeling as though I've neglected one thing for another which is never the case. There's more to come. Owe you another excerpt... which for all intensive purposes I've been paring down due to content. To censor or not? That is the current question... Not to worry. Enjoy. kisses for those you love and the strangers you don't. m.