Dear John,
we were born to write
this letter.
I know you wrote it too.
Our fetters were stitched
to our fateful shirts,
stamped as well
to our hamstrings
only visible
when we exposed our
selves to the reach of the sun
rising from behind
to paint us.
And those memories,
from preschool,
when we were friends,
before the fire,
that was when we learned to love
dinosaurs and commas.
Pauses were what we did not understand
and it would be
many years.
Time between
makes time
together.
We may never gather
again, and it's largely because
we are both afraid of work
and how it never loved us back.
We saw our fathers die
ambiguously at their own hands
slowly.
And that split us apart,
wrote the preamble
to this letter.
Neither of us eat sausage
or drink Jack Daniels anymore.
You still hunt.
I can't bring myself back
to the gun.
We can't stomach each other,
and can't image
that removal.
My dear John,
even if you never read
this note,
I sincerely hope you have
a good death.
Roman Ryan 