Dear Friend,

I thought I'd write "Dear Friend" because it seems to me that only someone I'd call a friend would read this. Unless there are some crazy people out there who aren't my friends but read this anyway. But I don't think that's very likely. Only friends care enough to actually read what their friends write. But even then, not always. Megan always said she was my friend, but she never read any of my letters and stuff. And Tina, she said she was my friend too, but she took my letters I wrote her and told everyone that I still wet the bed sometimes, even though I told her that was a secret! So I guess sometimes friends don't read your stuff, and sometimes people who read your stuff aren't your friends after all. So I wrote "Dear Friend" in hopes of this actually being read by a dear friend; someone I like and I trust and that won't go around making fun of me and my letters or pretending to be my friend but really only pretending all along. Someone who understands, and even if they don't, they try to anyway cause they know how much it eats people up inside without having people that understand them. And I just want someone like that for me. Someone like you.
Dear Friend, I have felt really eaten up lately. The other day this girl I know, let's call her Abby, she told me how she felt all eaten up too, all eaten up with pain and hurt and stuff, and I asked her why. And she said she was fine. But I said no, no that's not right, cause you just said you were full of pain. And she said it was nothing. But I wouldn't let her say that, and I kept asking her why, why, why, and she finally said that her boyfriend, this real big guy, had been hitting her cause she wouldn't have sex with him. And that cause the hitting had been hurting so much, and she'd just wanted it to stop, that she'd said, alright, okay, and had sex with him. And now she felt all eaten up with pain and hurt and shame and hate, cause of what he did to her and what she did to herself. And she was crying and stuff, with her dark make-up getting all runny, and I told her that it's all right, that was I was feeling eaten up too, and that in order to fix everything, in order to glue all the pieces back together and feel all better again, all we needed was some band-aids and some ice cream. And she stopped crying a bit and asked me if I was serious and I said of course, what else would I be? And then she smiled a bit, and we went to Wal*Mart and bought some dinosaur band-aids and some Ben&Jerry's, and Abby, the girl who wears dark make-up and whose boyfriend made her feel all eaten up inside, came over to my house and we sat and watched Looney Tunes till three in the morning, when she went home. And then I didn't feel nearly so empty and eaten up anymore; and I think Abby didn't feel that way either, and I wanted to go scream to the world that I felt happy and whole, and that the girl with lots of dark make-up, and the dinosaur band-aids from Wal*Mart, and the pint of Ben&Jerry's made me feel that way.
And Dear Friend, maybe if we all had someones like you or maybe someones like me, or maybe even someones like Dark Make-Up Abby, everyone wouldn't be so eaten up all the time, like apples with only brown spots left or leaves with bunches of insects chewing holes everywhere. And then maybe we could all be friends and no one would get mad anymore and all the holes from being eaten would be filled with love and dinsosaur band-aids and ice cream and stuff. And we would all be whole.
And we'd all be whole.
Dear Friend, thanks for listening. I hope you're whole inside too.

---------

^an attempt at a charlie-esque "perks of being a wallflower" style. thoughts on it?
(yes? no? maybe? never write like this again?)