To whom it may concern
To whom it may concern,
I haven’t seen you in what feels like forever
I don’t think it would surprise you to know I grew up clever
I mean, that was your prophecy
That you told me
My pygmy hands wrapped around that warm mug of tea
Looking out to sea
With no coastline in sight
You helped me to see the might
In my own words
When the darkness gave me fright
You taught me to write
My own bedtime stories
In my head
Eyes wide shut
In my childhood bed
To whom it may concern,
I definitely loved you more than I should
You taught me things that my parents never could
You were like my own personal Robin Hood
A little girl with eyes wide
Staring up at the man who taught her arrows to fly
Perhaps Peter Pan, youth now in disguise
Because I remember seeing that look in your eyes
The one that promised we would reach the skies
God I wish someone had told me this worship was not wise
To whom it may concern,
I remember watching lines form on your face
As the laughter spilled from your lips to grace
My little tiny ears
Pride puffing out my chest
As that smile came to rest
Upon your delighted visage
Like a bird coming home to nest
And I knew it had arrived at my humorous behest
As was so often your quest
Toward me
To whom it may concern,
I know it seems my purpose is to enthrall
But when whom it concerns
Holds no concern at all
Anymore
For my well being
It keeps me seeing
Your harmless smile
Contrasting with my father’s face like thunder
Because the man who tore his daughter’s world asunder
Just so happened to be his brother
To whom it may concern,
If you were to lobotomize my mind
Peer inside
You would certainly find
Those same wide eyes
Begging you
Imploring you
Why?
And this is why it concerns you.
And though you and I know it’s true
Our audience still doesn’t have a clue
So let’s backtrack shall we?
Make it a real expository
Though I know you don’t wish it to be
It was you who said ‘you can kiss me’
So, ‘whom it concerns’
Now it’s your turn
Because the parental bridges you burned
Still exist inside me as rubble
And FYI
Nine year old girls should never be invited to kiss their uncles.
To whom it does concern,
I swear with that one vocalization
Your perceived existence split in my imagination
And you became
Both my unruffled angel with pure white feathers
At the same time Lucifer offering cast iron fetters
But is that not the definition of unconditional love?
I hear my hindsight cackle
A fancy pair of words for a fancy pair of shackles?
To you whom it concerns,
You could not just let it be
You saw fit to pursue me
Consume me
I never saw my body as a temple
That was the title given to my soul
My body was the vessel
Despite this I always kept still
As you worshipped the vessel and desecrated the temple
To whom it may concern,
You warned me to keep my silence
And in my young mind I didn’t see
This as the quiet violence
my elder mind now exposes it to be
But I did follow your decree
Thinking ‘well, as long as he is happy’
Because your word meant everything to me
And you should have thought of this
Because lack of objection
Does not equate to willingness
To whom it may concern,
Four years felt like fourteen
And the destruction you wrought could never be unseen
My soul screamed
Out to my friends as they smiled at me, clueless
But as it often is
The victim was the only witness
And the words grew next to my heart like tumors
Then detaching
Scratching
Climbing
Clambering
Their way up my throat
But my lips acted as jailers
Sealing them in their moist chambers
Only to get stuck between my teeth
Coat my tongue in a bitter sheath
With no escape nor admission
Poisoned by my own confession
To whom it may concern,
I don’t know the last words of yours I heard
Because I wasn’t there when the confrontation occurred
But I always imagine police pounding at the door
And you dropping to your knees as you implore
Them to see reason
But this is where my imagining stops
Due to the legion
Of tears stacked behind my eyes
Just waiting for the slightest sign
That I’m remembering that I never got to say goodbye
To whom it may concern,
You left marks on me
Scarred me
But I rose once more
Dusting off the ashes
I thought I’d evened the score
I grieved for my lost years
No tears
It seemed you’d taken them with you
All these years under your thumb
It seemed I was short of a screw
So many hands offered to me
Pitying hands
Furious hands
Well-meaning hands
Puppet hands with strings attached
Hands that grabbed and snatched
At my broken pieces
On the off chance they were compatible with their own.
I cowered and hid
Still missing that screw
I hid for so long that the hands withdrew
To whom it concerns,
You should know that I pressed on, on
Onward and upward
With no direction other than forward
Directionless
Boundless
Weightless
Formless
Gormless
Speechless
Blameless
Warmness
Arms encircling me
Not yours
Never yours
But arms that cared
And arms that shared
And arms that spared
Me from drifting off into the base particles that every human must
Arms that kept me from becoming stardust
Arms that promised salvation
No longer broken but a reincarnation
They promised rebirth
Whole of heart and mind
And new sense of self worth
But no.
I hadn’t realized
You hadn’t said
That the knives you used to cut and slice
Were left imbedded in my flesh
So that the moment healing hands tried to remove them
Soothe them
The blood would run once again
Knife sharp memories of the pain
Feeling pulse increase
Limbs shaking
Heart breaking
But the only sign of beast
Is the boy with arms outstretched only desiring to love me
But who can love at arm’s length?
To whom it may concern,
The years passed by and as is often the case
The victim acquired a warriors face
But this warrior has no weapons adorning
She carries only a pen and a warning
There is no universe in which this would have crushed me
I rise above the smoke and debris
Only to see
My spirit still intact
So, here’s a fact
This will never make me bitter and jaded
Just when you thought my compassion hath faded
I will rise again
And though you wouldn’t understand
Offer my fallen comrades a smile and then
Offer a hand
To whom it may concern,
The end of this letter is nigh
Yet I find myself struggling for the finishing line
From the bottom of my heart, fuck you?
In spite of it all, I love you?
For everything you taught me, thank you?
No.
Just.
I forgive you.
Listen to the audio version here.