I found a letter from you today. The envelope was gone. I don't know how long ago you sent it, or where you sent it from, or even where you sent it to. How many times have I moved since then? I guess I do know that I never wrote you back.

I don't know who you are now. I know only a little bit more about who you were then, a few choice images and impressions that you gave to me in your letter. There is a you that I know, long gone now, and there is a you that I might know now if I'd decided to try. I don't know how I could reach you now. I don't still know anyone else who could tell me.

I know your handwriting, though. I don't think that's ever changed, although you could have lost an arm in a motorcycle accident or come down with Parkinson's because you didn't drink enough coffee. I remember that. I'd drag you in for coffee somewhere, and you never knew what to order. You'd watch me from across the table with nothing in your hands or your mouth except for the occasional cigarette or string of words. It was always those words I wanted more than the coffee, anyway.

When I first saw that letter today, under a stack of other forgotten papers, your handwriting caught my eye the same way your face used to. I wonder now how much difference there is. Both are beautiful and unique. Both are at their most striking when used to express something meaningful that I tell myself I won't ever forget, but of course I do, and both are saddening when I can't find a way to respond.

If I took out a newspaper ad to print this letter I'm writing to you now, maybe then you'd read it, but I don't know which newspaper would be local to you anymore, or within each metropolitan area which columnists you'd tend to agree with the most often. I could buy commercial time on a national network, but this letter is too long for a thirty-second spot, and if you even have a TV right now you might just hit 'mute' and get up to stretch for a minute anyway. Maybe I could get a job at Publisher's Clearinghouse and sneak a copy into every junk envelope they mail out, but you never even opened those, did you?

I remember you naked. I guess that's probably not the right thing to say to someone I haven't talked to in years, that it took me I don't even know how long to write back to, but it's true. I also remember you clothed, if that makes it less awkward. I remember you a great number of ways. I don't remember you writing a letter to me, but I do remember finding it, and reading it, just today.

If I'd picked up this same pen years ago, when I still knew how to reach you, maybe I'd also be writing to you today. Maybe I wouldn't even need to. Maybe it turns out you live just around the corner from me now, or even next door, but with our hectic schedules and the way we feel so faceless and alone in the city that we rarely even really see our neighbors when we pass them on the sidewalk, we don't even realize we're so close. Maybe we've been so close for a long time, but we couldn't realize it, because I never wrote you back until now.

I remember a few months ago, how I passed a woman on the street, and I thought to myself, funny, she looks just like you. It's been years; you probably look less like you now than she does. Except for your handwriting, I mean.

I still remember you naked, anyway. Sorry, but that's not negotiable.

I hope to hear from you soon.

xxx