Letter to A Ghost

Dear Neighbor,

I wanted to take a little time to collect my thoughts and try to share my perspective with you in a way that could be helpful. I hope this email finds you feeling more stable and enjoying your time back at home.

I am uncomfortable with some of the behavior you’ve demonstrated in the short time that I communicated with you. Although I wanted to share this with you at various times, it seemed as though it would be a waste of my energy to try to communicate with you while you were intoxicated. Nonetheless, I wanted to make you aware of some of these things because You probably don’t know how it feels to be on the other side. My impression of your behavior is that it was very self-serving, that you could not potentially consider how it may feel to be:

Asked to “suck your dick“ After meeting you one time and other sexual solicitation.

Asked for drugs.

Dismissed after I did not give you drugs.

Be referred to as a “bitch.“

I understand that you were intoxicated at the time of exhibiting these behaviors. However, that’s not an excuse. It feels predatory, scary, demeaning, disrespectful and objectifying to be asked for sexual favors from a stranger. I wanted to tell you this initially, but the truth of the matter is that I was attracted to you and interested in you as a Potential romantic partner, so I was confused. I could clearly recognize that you were just wanting to get laid but I also wanted to believe that perhaps maybe, it was more than that. Perhaps your intoxicated state made you brave and that you would ask me over for coffee, or to talk or something indicating you were interested in more than just having somebody, anybody with a cute enough body and XX chromosomes satisfy your sexual itch.

As more time went by and you continued on your bender without showing any real interest in getting to know me, I felt confused. I continued to grapple with my attraction to you and impression of what a sweet, warm and friendly man you appeared to be when we met, compared to your brash sexual requests that sometimes even sounded violent. For example, you mentioned at one point that you wanted to “break that ass.” Even though this was cringeworthy to me, I still wanted to believe that underneath it all, you were actually interested in me as a person instead of a temporary drunken challenge.

Not only are there several safety risks with feeling as though a man might be pursuing you in a violent sexual way while he is intoxicated and literally three houses away, but it also just feels pretty shitty. And scary. You scared me.

Maybe it’s funny to say this to me when you’re totally fucked up, but it doesn’t feel very funny on the receiving end after one time. It feels dehumanizing and even patronizing because the entirety of my humanity is being reduced to either a sexual toy, a drug lord or somebody disposable. It feels like a violation.

I also feel sad that your interest in chatting with me seemed to disappear altogether after you figured out I wasn’t going give you drugs or sex. Perhaps I just seemed like another opportunity to get your fix but I was legitimately interested in getting to know you.

I’m a hot piece of cake, but also a lot more… Maybe someday you’ll get to find out.

I want to believe that the guy I met the first day who was warm, sunny, kind is really a big part of you underneath whatever challenges you are dealing with. Maybe someday I’ll get to know him more, too. Although I’m hurt by your behavior, I’m still open to talking with you and I genuinely care about how you’re doing.

I sense you have a story. I would like to hear it, someday. I’ve got one too.

I hope you’re able to break your “cycle,” as you called it, for good. Please let me know if you do. Maybe we could get a do-over.

Briana

P.S. Here’s the thing, neighbor. You’ve touched my heart. This is something I never say and it sounds incredibly cheesy even to my own ears. I’ve spent the majority of my life navigating everything intellectually and this just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why, but I would like to talk to you again. I suppose there’s more to life than what we can understand with our brains…

History of His Future

Despite my attempts to educate him about the dangers of me coming over his house for presumed sexual escapades, I never thought he was really a threat. I typed out words about women being raped and murdered, battered and broken by seemingly sweet men without thinking seriously that he could be one of these men. I thought wrong.

My insecurities about rejection, the questioning of my own hyperactive internal dialogue about whether or not we could have a friendship or something more, instantly quieted. A simple Internet search validated my primordial alarm bells. He had a criminal record for attacking a woman while under the influence of drugs. My neighbor, the guy with springy corkscrew curls and a flashy grin had hurt at least one woman.

As I reread the brief article, some nauseating combination of validation and fear cascades along my spine. This duo ignites a fury, anger that simmers along the pinpoints of my fingertips. How dare he be this man? Before my mind can completely obliterate his credibility as a human to shreds, I am transported to the scene of his crime, his arrest over a decade ago.

The intentionally uncomfortable plastic of the back of the police car greets my back. In the hollow of this midnight, the trio of flashing red white and blue police lights swivels across his face. Younger, but still him. The muscles of his arms are taught behind him, constrained by steel handcuffs that reflect the pale moon leaking through the window. He does not know I am here. He is 23 years old, secured in a police car after assaulting his girlfriend’s sister while high or intoxicated, or both.

The cloak of invisibility, the timelessness that allows me to privately observe this scene guarantees me safety. The ragged intake of oxygen into his lungs paired with the swooshing of his gaze up and down, side to side, assures me he is unaware of my presence. As much as I might want to presume him a baby monster, I resist. This is not what I came here for. Instead, I do the unthinkable; tentatively, I reach my fingers out to cup his knee, connecting time and space, physics and matter to remember that he is still human.

I consider unlimited possibilities for redemption for his future. I elongate and compress possibilities to enrich his life, to reduce this terrible assault into a one time mistake. I imbue these moments alone, together with him with the beckoning of success, recovery for his future. As if capable of transferring golden particles like glittering promises through the touch of my hand, I squeeze the denim of his jeans tighter.

As a phalanx of police and emergency medical professionals stream by, I do not look at her. Should the mere sight of her arm, streaming hair or shattered composure greet my senses, the spell of compassion I am entertaining will be broken. She will win; her pain, her innocence, her tragedy will win and he will become the monster.

I refocus on the braiding of if not a golden halo around his frizzing curls, a circle of compassion and hope. I intricately affix this circle, like a life preserver, like a glowing harbinger of good to him in my mind. I wonder about the lineage of experiences that brought him to this point. I consider what story lurks in his history and if anybody has ever wanted to know it.

I lean in, nearly brushing my invisible nose to his earlobe. In a voice he cannot hear, I whisper “you can do this.”

As I exit the police car, I catch a glimpse of his nearly imperceptible nod. Should this be a response to my gentle encouragement, I’ll never know. The ginormous, opulent homes tower into the sky. Despite their assumed perfection and impeccable glamour, it seems as though they too reach to the stars for reassurances and promises. The rush of the ocean accompanies me as I travel by foot in this neighborhood.

One step at a time, I navigate away from this night, wondering if the stars will pave the way for him to come home to himself. Or perhaps, he will harness his own inner glow and pave the way himself.

Should time expand and collapse, landing him at my doorstep in another decade, may the sunshine in his eyes in the words on his lips belong truly to him.