TO: Jake
I didn't know you. I don't know you. And given the circumstances I will never get a chance to know you. To fully know you, I mean. What I do know is that we went to the same school, were in the same grade, or at least a neighboring grade, and that you had a wide smile that covered the vastness of your plainly handsome face. I've tried to read your personality through pictures. You're laughing, smiling, singing, and shouting. I can only observe your exclamations in and through silence. You are, were, very much real. Living a life I knew nothing about with mutual friends that I've drifted further from. Now these distant friends post your picture on every social media center, the news has your name bolstered in black, white, and red across the headlines. There are forums with comments filled with opinions about you, about your death, about your killer. And your face is clearer in my mind today than ever before, including the times we may or may not have passed each other in our high schools halls, or more likely, briskly across the senior lawn. I think I remember you were an A's fan. I recall you celebrating with a gleaming smile in the iconic green and yellow coat and hat. Could be a mistaken memory. Could have been another face in an endless crowd. And the same could be said of your circumstances, this could have happened to anyone else, it could have been another unlucky soul struck down by the fierce bite of that bullet. And perhaps you could have enjoyed this cloudy eclipse, gleaming that contagious smile back towards the hidden Sun. And I would continue on not knowing you, not needing to have this conversation with the idea of your poltergeist. So even though I never knew you, and never will, I wish you were here.
