Love Letter to my Friend

I write my love letters in silence.

No classical piece of music could outdo the beat of my heart as it watches you leave.
I write them on napkins at our favorite coffee shop, while waiting for you to go on your break. 

I write them long after we've parted ways, when I've made it home, through traffic, crowded Tokyo trains, a chilly walk home, and a set of keys that refused to turn in the lock. I write them after marinating in them for hours, to make sure I've felt them seep into the bone so deeply, that when I'm cracked open, you'll taste it in the bone marrow. 

I write love letters in my notes, because I get choked up at your departure, even though I know that even half a world away, you'll still be closer to my heart than millions of others. I write them in walls of text, then spend the next three hours rereading them and correcting the spelling errors that my blurry eyes couldn't predict.

I write love letters in my absent minded train of thought, as it rushes through the stops of every core memory we've shared. I see them clearly, words swirling in the bowl of cinnamon roll dough I'm kneading; the first recipe I made for you, because you never demand, and I wanted you to know I appreciate it. 

I write love letters with the tip of my finger, as I trace trinkets you've given me on birthdays, each one with meaning; to be loved is to be known.

I write love letters in my own four walls, away from you, because you hate goodbyes, and when we parted we said "see you Monday", knowing damn well you leave on Sunday. 
I write love letters and drop them off in your inbox, like a crow bearing gifts, to thank you for the love you've bestowed upon me. 

This is one of my many love letters that will never see the light of day, nor the tears in your eyes, because you hate goodbyes.

But you know, 愛は屋鳥に及ぶ.

 

Love truly does extend to the crows perched on the roof. And no love letter will do our bond justice, and even though our crows will differ in species and region however far we roam, I'll always fondly look at them and think of you.

I'll see you Monday. That's a promise. 

 

'First Light' in EchoReview Literary Magazine, Issue VI, 2025

 

    "History is written by screams" states the opener for October 2025's issue vi of EchoReview, a literary magazine filled with art that, much like springs, trickles from the very depths of the human soul; the souls of newly published writers, not unlike mountains, wild and largely unmapped. In truth, history has always been recorded in accordance to things "witnessed" - tales of heartache or bravery, of bloodshed and tears, victory or defeat, from a victor's or bystander's perspective. 

 

"But what about the whispers?" 

 

    The unseen, or rather, unrecognized. Be it hero or victim, often left unspoken for, forgotten through time and space. In the issue titled "Silenced", EchoReview has once again dipped their fountain pen into the pools of poetry & prose, and brought us another splendid, short anthology of raw tales, like honeycomb, spilling greedily, faster than lips can cage, in every turning page. Hardly sweet - the tartness of the silenced seldom allows it; yet the addiction is all the same. 

 

    'First Light', is a diachronic tale about oppressor and oppressed, abuser and abused, perpetrator and victim. Tracing its still pulsing veins back to the Massacre of Smyrna in 1921, it references the endless cycle, the fight for survival, and facing loss while it pulls the shards of your shattered heart like teeth. A story with faceless, voiceless characters, that applies universally through the fabric of space and time, to every massacre, holocaust, and genocide. From rivers to sea.

 

    Opening at the close, on page 48, this story speaks about the defiance of the unbreakable human spirit, the detrimental loss that both the fallen and standing carry in their bones for generations to come, and the cycle of never-ending violence, that only ever changes hands and sides.

 

Hatred doesn't discriminate, it destroys us all equally.

Besmirchingly yours,

Melisanthi Greco 

Read EchoReview Issue VI here

  

The Mathematician, Anne Zahalka, 1994