Pen Pal

A Story by jaime

actually a letter

I have some confessions to make. I never thought I would resort to exposing my twisted thoughts in a letter. Frankly, these words are probably nothing more than a waste of precious ink!

I just cannot suppress the intense, yet mundane feelings you invoke in me. I fear impending self-destruction. I have to spill it out on this page. How ironic that I am using you to unload this junk-five minutes ago I envisioned you dying and it made me smile. Then I laughed out loud at the thought of your inability to defend yourself. Before I toss you out with all of the other trash in my life, I am going to use you... one...last...time. Never again will you smear my good name.

I have not always despised you. The first time I saw you I thought you were "the one". The missing element. The crutch I needed to pull me out of my voiceless slump. A writing partner, a catalyst to transform my thoughts to words, ideas to stories, pain to prose. I loved you at first glance. (My God, I am so impulsive.) I will admit you caught my eye above all the others. Kudos to your clever packaging! You fooled me. I could see right through the others. Your sophisticated style brilliantly disguised your worthlessness.

All you produced was a black smudge on a blank canvas. (I should have known.) You just do not click right for me. I knew that the first time I held you. Your hardness left me calloused and cramped. Your soft, smooth bottom felt foreign in my hand. You were to be an extension of me. What happened? I made a terrible choice.

I have kept you around because of self-doubt. I thought, "Maybe it's me. Maybe I am the problem." Perhaps I expected too much. I made up excuses to give you another try. Then I started to blame you for my lack of creativity, my void of expression, the gap between my thoughts and dreams. Still I kept using you, while you played dead on my clean white sheets. I envisioned you surprising me one day. I imagined you lifting yourself up, pushing yourself to complete my thoughts, finish my sentences, dot my "i's" and cross my "t's". I guess I thought you would magically save me from my ambitious default. Ha! A joke with no punch line emerged. The story of my life.

Finally, I saw you for what you really are: heartless and plastic, half-hollow and leaking. Why have I allowed your imperfections to smudge my dreams? I wish you could tell me where you were when I needed you. So many times. Just gone. I reached for you in emotional crisis and you would hide in the couch cushions, under the bed, between the sheets. Mocking my needs. I searched for you for hours-but it was too late. When I found you I was too tired, too frustrated and too weak.

I began to fantasize about pushing you around, manipulating you to draw the line between love and hate. Love-hate. Love/hate. Pushing you, dragging you. Chewing you up and spitting you out. If I unleashed half of my emotions I could drain you dry in days-perhaps hours. I could use your slender, dainty lifeless form to fulfill my desires and then break you in two with my bare hands. Snap. Done. I breathe relief, suck down a cigarette, and sleep in peace. I awaken alive and anxious to replace you. Start fresh.

No need to panic. It's all just a silly daydream. When you die it will be in someone else's hands-not mine! It tickles me to think of you lying forgotten on someone's cold, office floor until your blackness fades to gray, and you dry out. Unusable. Passed over and stepped on day after day until someone sweeps you up and dumps the pieces. (As I should have done long ago).

This is dramatic-I know. Ridiculous rants. Insanely therapeutic scribbles. I can move on now-put this all past me. I can find humor in the fact that you will never read this, and yet I am free!

This is officially my last paragraph. I will never use you again. After this, I will release you from my grip. By tomorrow, you'll be in someone else's hands. I will begin my search for something better. I will find a true fit for me. I will find another pen....pal.