Dear Wigleaf,

It isn't easy writing to you like this. I hope you know at least that much, but I've been hoping a lot these days, and it's all still dark as ever.

Have you ever tried to mail an imprint of your heart through the U.S. postal system? This is what it involves: peeling the skin back from your chest, wiggling the rib bones and the edge of the lung aside, and pressing the stationery firmly to your heart. You have to hold it there for at least 60 seconds, like a temporary tattoo, while your heart beats haltingly beneath your hand. It's a laborious process, and uncomfortable besides. But I hope you like mine. I mean I hope you'll accept it. It's kind of like the impression of Jesus' face on the cloth, which I thought you might find resonant. Or maybe that's blasphemy. It's probably blasphemy. I never know anymore.

Anyway, what I mean by all this is that I love you, Wigleaf, miserably and unceasingly. I keep hoping you'll come home. To us. To you and me. Wigleaf and Sionnain. But it's dark, too dark to see, and the crickets chirp from some short distance, like a warning or a scream.

You have my heart in the meantime,

Sionnain




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Sionnain Buckley is a finalist for the 2019 Mythic Picnic Postcard Prize.

Read Sionnain's story.

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