Postcards

I write postcard
and send them to
strangers.

I’d like to get a
postcard some day.
One with a picture
of a sky that
is too blue, and
everything is where
it’s supposed to
be.

I wouldn’t put it
up on the fridge,
I don’t have any
magnets… Maybe
in a book or
a cheap frame
hang it on the
wall.

Why?

To remind me
of, I don’t know,
the idea of somewhere
else, a not here,
a “nice” place
it doesn’t have
these four walls or
the empty grass
beyond them.

Really I think I
would frame it.
A simple one.
I wonder what
it would say?
The postcard.On the
back.

I always like
to write “wish
you were here.”
Or make up funny
stories about how
I tried to impress
the locals, but it
all fell apart and
everyone had a good
laugh and I made
a new friend,
or lover, who
showed me the “real”
thing.

But, sometimes I
tell them my name,
that I’m not happy
here. No one hears
me though and I
never learned how
to scream. That
the picture on the
front isn’t real
at all and that
if you were here
you would be
miserable.

The postcard is
a lie. It doesn’t
mention the weather
or the people or
the fact that
everywhere is the
same when you
can’t stand being
with yourself. That
here is a constant
reminder of all the
theres where you’re
not.

Why?

I want these strangers
who get my postcard
to cry, to feel
to be frustrated
and upset. To know
something. Something
they can’t change.
Only accept and
regret it. Until time
erases it from
them.

I don’t think
I’d frame it
a shadowbox would
be better. And
I’d put it in
the bathroom, so
guests would see
it but not be
able to to turn
it over. I know
they’d want to
the need, the urge
to turn it over, read
it. To know its
secrets.

I wonder if I’ve
ever met someone
who received one
of my cards… We’d never
know… But it’d be there
that secret  bond
a thin string
tying us, connecting us.
Unknown to even us.

I like to think if
they did know. They
would thank me, and
hug me, and cry with
me.

Author: Jonathon

Would rather be out swimming, running, or camping. Works in state government. Spent a youth reading genre-fiction; today, he is making up for it by reading large quantities of non-fiction literature. The fact that truth, in every way, is more fascinating than fiction still tickles him. View all posts by Jonathon