Letters to a stranger

Why I cry

Hey.

You've read this letter before. In different words, posed as something else of course. But I've written this story before. You've somehow become the faceless familiar stranger this letter reaches.

On the days when my burdens feel like I'm holding the weight of earth aloft, rivers stream from the depths of a cavity where my heart should lie.

The poems and letters I fashion from emotions my heart somehow creates and translates, have taken me to places beyond the stars where my perception of reality could never reach. "This should be enough to keep you sane." I tell myself each time my shoulders break. "These words you have the ability to shape and transform into knives that draw blood endlessly. These words you've stringed from mere letters into what they are and subsequently, sentences that reach deep within a strangers soul. These words you've written on sheets of papers that would leave cuts once nature or that magic in a vacuum carries them to those stranded places they do not belong. These words should suffice to numb the pain and ease your days even if just a little."

Hey stranger, you probably think the same too. Poets at least have a medium they could turn to. Somewhere to cry without having to rip apart their skins and break their rib cages just to bare their heart for the world to see. On some days, this helps. Writing to nothingness in the moment as you would talk to a confidant when you find yourself buried in a grave you dug and can't seem to crawl your way out of. And on those other days, more often than you'd think, you relive trauma through memories you bleed into the ink you transcribe.

On the bad days, it's hard to separate monsters from the ones I love. And somehow, it's sometimes hard to reconcile monsters with the ones I love.

So on the days when I can't control the million things which burdens and suppresses my being, I let rivers stream from the depths of a cavity where my heart should be. I let the tears in my eyes trail the paths to a language I have somehow forgotten to speak.

A word for today is Nepenthe. It's an ancient greek word which is defined as a medicine for sorrow. A place, person or thing that helps you forget your sorrows, pain and suffering.

Thanks for reading ❤️.