Dear Wigleaf,

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. Ok, in years. A whole lifetime. It's been painful to remember our time together, and the world already holds enough hurt. But today I was running on the beach and I almost tripped over a seal carcass lumped into the sand, its wet fur still and slick against its curves. I thought of you. Ok, that sounds bad. I thought of us. I thought of how when we stopped swimming, we were only bodies, with no sound, a heavy dark space between us where the purr of the ocean used to be. I wrote this note to you in my mind. I might've used the back of an old receipt in my pocket, but you once told me receipt paper is poison. I can't stop nodding when cashiers offer them, but I won't force you to absorb toxins just to know my thoughts. Not again. When I got home, I wrote the words again, this time in ink onto this postcard. My kid picked it out at the aquarium last week. Or last month. Last year. She won't miss it, she always wants something new. She's probably forgotten it exists.

And have you forgotten about me? Are you swimming again?

With love,
Rebecca