passing_notes raze today_i_learned we went to the same high_school. if we were anything at all to each other, i would ask why you never told me. i don't know much more about your life than you know about mine. and you know nothing. i'm not sure why it's so strange to imagine you haunting the same halls i did and passing notes in some of the same rooms i sat in. but it is. one thing i am sure of: if you hadn't carried me in your womb for the better part of a year, we wouldn't have been friends. and if i'd slipped you some of my words in the middle of class, you would have made a fist around what i had to give and chucked it in the trash without a second thought. 220903 ... ovenbird Lunch comes with a note: “Made with all the love in my heart.” The script is rudimentary, like a child’s. It’s accompanied by a small sketch of anthropomorphic pizza—a wedge with arms and legs and huge adoring eyes. Inside the box, a second scrawled message inviting me to a video chat on the weekend. I catch the eye of the chef in the kitchen. He quickly looks away. I scribble my response on a greasy receipt and leave it for him to find. When he comes to clear the remains of my meal I put my words in his hand. This is the crux of everything. I should have gathered my courage a long time ago. I should have written my love onto every scrap of paper available. I should have folded each into an origami crane. I should have let them fly. So many stories scribbled in secret when I could have made them beacons of connection. What might have happened then? But I stuffed my wadded words into the damp depths of my pockets and wondered why no one could find me. 260717 what's it to you? who go blather from