Pleas of Futility

Dearly Beloved:

August 26, 2023 2:01am-2:36am

Everything's changed. We used to talk endlessly on the phone for hours every day. We used to text constantly, even while we were on the phone together. We used to send memes back and forth like it was no one's business, and send streaks with hearts in them because it was our special thing and just because we could. We would laugh over little inside jokes, come up with funny nicknames for each other.

Except now when I call you don't answer. At least not right away. Sometimes you'll return the call, and we'll talk for half an hour before you have to drop the call.

When I text you don't answer. The same word haunts my screen every time I check to see if I missed your text. "Read". I go weeks without hearing from you.

I get your memes though. Two or three of them every couple days. I always seem to think it's your way of reaching out. No matter how many times you disprove that theory, I'm still always sitting there typing out responses, trying to get a something back—anything. But unless it's a laughing emoji or a quick thumbs up, I don't think it quite counts.

You were always the person I wanted to run to. When something good happened. When something bad did. When I wrote a new song or when I saw something that reminded me of you. I remember the giant 6ft Peppa Pig blowup Christmas decoration we used to joke about. I remember seeing it in the store and telling you that I almost bought it for you. I remember how we talked about how you'd fit it in your room and how you'd throw out anything in the way of you being able to fit it. You always had this fascination with that pig.

I remember the incredibly confusing backstory you came up with—the "proper Peppa Pig storyline" you called it. I remember all the jokes we made about Daddy Pig and I can still picture Peppa on your bed from my last visit. The first in months. "Gangsta' Peppa", with that old gold-beaded bracelet around her neck; a chain.

I still have videos from last year of you making your bed; you're still the only person I know who gets inside of their bed to make it.

You stopped sending streaks with hearts in them. Not completely, though. Every four to six weeks I'll get one, if you remember. All I get now are Ss. The nicknames have stopped on your end and our inside jokes are far and few in between.

You know it was just this week that I was at your house. You showed me the song you'd just started writing—your first ever—and I showed you my poems. You didn't know that I wrote poems. You hadn't been around long enough for me to show them to you. I tried, once, but you left me on read then too. After that I didn't have it in me to share them anymore. I thought you hated them.

You never did say anything. About the poems, I mean. You just asked me who or what the first two were about and then hmmed and huhed the others.

Then I showed you my two new songs. The first you'd heard before, I sent it to you. You said you remembered it. I remembered sending it. Again, you left me on opened. The second you'd never heard before. It was brand new. You were the first person I showed it to, the first person I wanted to show it to.

You had lots of questions about that one. Or really only one, what was it about? And I tried to explain it, I really did, but the more I tried to, the more I started to realize that you'd never truly, fully understand. I showed you a video of another artist. One who'd written a song for a similar purpose, but I think all it did was confuse you further.

You used to be the one person who understood me better than anything. The one person I could talk to about anything, and everything that was on my mind. I never had the chance to tell you that I finished the song.

Dearly beloved:

I'm here to mourn.

To our sinking friendship, slipping through my grasp—drowning in a river that begun with a single drop of rain—I mourn for you.

Forever and always,

A contributing party.