letter

 Dear Josh,

I wanted to take the time just to tell you that I'm really glad I got to meet you. I remember very strongly, for whatever reason, sitting and talking about that stupid sunroom story. For your dignity's sake, I won't get into detail [LOL]. I just miss you man. I don't know where you went, and that little worry as to how you've been doing is what I'd like to say is the reason I come back to the thought, but what I really think keeps that thought there in my mind is the idea that I don't know why you left. It was rather ceremonious, when you left, and for that I feel although you deserve some arrangement of ornation in my memory. I know you're alive, but the way you left felt like a funeral. The idea that you're right there -- but gone, for whatever reason, a reason that I cannot know -- kind of feels like chasing the stretching shadow of your own visage down a street at night. It just expands outwards, and you can't ever really grasp it, regardless of how close you're gonna stay to it. My memory of you, even just as a friend, which was all we were, sticks to me. And I don't know why.

Empathy and guilt have always been difficult emotions for me to grasp, and because I don't really understand them, it's not often that I feel them. That makes it really special to me when they do come around, because they're feelings that are really strong; which juxtaposes the fact that they don't come often. Anyways, I feel like I need to apologize to you; I met you, but I didn't let you meet me. I was real, but only as real as my voice could be over the phone pretending to be someone I wasn't. You're a really cool guy, dude. I'm sorry that I misplaced your trust. I put it up on my shelf like a snow globe. You opened up to a person who didn't exist, to a project built to do  to do nothing but collect other people's feelings like a net in the sea. It was a practice in escapism. That's why I feel guilty -- you were real, you escaped with your real character, and I created one to escape with. I wasn't really me, I was emulating a "me" that I could be when I didn't feel like being me. So I'm sorry Josh. My name really is Jackie though. 

So here I'm saying, it was nice to have met you. And I hope you're well man. Reach out some time. Maybe you can meet me.