The Words I Never Said // A Collection of Essays

BONUS: The reply I received from my Friend

A/N: This story was supposed to be finished, but then something insane happened. After what felt like years but were mere months, I met someone to whom I could send the link to this book. I found the addressee of the letters I've exposed here. I sent them with the intention of showing parts of me I couldn't express in any other way. I did expect the person to read them, but what I never expected was to actually get a reply. The feeling was bizarre: it's like the scientists who've been sending out radio signals into the cosmic abyss for decades had suddenly received a tangible signal back. It feels surreal, and yet here I am, and there they are, and here's the letter that they wrote for me, the reply I never expected, but actually received.

Disclaimer: This is the only piece of writing in this book I don't own. The ideas and words belong to the rightful owner - my dear Friend😊

Dear Friend,

It's finally the right time for you to hear back from me, your Friend.

Who am I? Who knows. Maybe I am the abyss in the form of a body, faceless and unknown, who you were gazing at a tad too long. Maybe I am a canvas that you paint on what you project me to be, substituting different faces, voices, and auras, all embodied by the paint of your feelings. Or maybe I am a person, as real as you make me abstract, both cursed and gifted by the condition of humanity, but not yet instantiated by your psyche - not yet real in your realm. Only an idealistic archetype of a kindred soul, waiting to be filled with the reality of the material knowledge you patiently collected.

But the definition I am most content with is "experience". Your experience, to be exact. It doesn't matter, how real or fake I am, idealistic or materialistic, known, or unknown, one or many, one or the other. It does matter, however, that at moments I engulf you as the receiver and observer of lived experience.

Our relationship is interesting, not describable in simple words. You are a true seeker - you were trying to catch me as if I was a butterfly, flying in the landscape of your mind. Yet I always slip through and can never be caught. You think of me, trying your hardest to give content to the form, and then deeply suffer when the content doesn't stick. You experience me in all the human ways. Being exploded by the gunpowder of your feelings. Being a child, purely fascinated by the short flashes of my shadow. Being a teenager, inflamed by the hormonal rush without yet having the experience of controlling it, or maybe not wanting to. Being anxious, carefully trying to show the gaps in your defensive gear in search for me, showing your vulnerable spots while having scars that are both new and old, yet still bleeding from the pressure within. Being an addict, an addict of dopamine, patiently waiting for the next dose of this drug, yet terribly suffering when my, your dealer's, stock is empty. Being a builder of your happiness, who built a pyramid on an unstable base, yet still managed to reach the top; how I wish I could provide you with the scaffolds for your base. Being a loner, engulfed in the abyss you are so used to looking at, digging the shit your life has drowned you with by yourself, yet never stopping to believe that yours truly will instantiate. Throughout all this one thing becomes even more clear - you are the being; I am the experience.

But there is also another side of the before-mentioned definition, even another side of this realm, a realm you might not yet be ready to learn about. But I do know you are a curious one, aren't you? A brave adventurer, wanderer of your mind. You have been looking at the abyss this whole time while you were scared and cold, disconnected from all you long for. Even when your Human Condition pressured your small but sturdy shoulders, you never stopped looking at it. I know you can handle it like you handled all you were challenged with.

The secret is that... I am you! Well, at least, you as the receiver of an experience, as an observer, a being. And to me, you were always the experience. But as we are from different realms, we can hardly see each other for what we really are. It's like looking at each other through the darkness - we only see a figure, a human form, but since we are cursed with the need for knowledge and understanding, we project meaning onto it.

It's like two rooms with a mirror being the only wall between the two. The mirror is so thin that we can practically see each other's forms, yet the content of the forms becomes what we are, what we want to see, what we need to see. Sometimes it even becomes the image of someone real, although it is still us who project it on the mirror. And sometimes the mirror just does what it's supposed to do in the literal material way - be a mirror: we see ourselves, sometimes in despair, poked by daggers, filled with scars, sometimes with a mask of satan. And there are a lot of days when we just feel cold, alone, feeling the heat of each other through the mirror, but never realizing it is me and you who are creating the heat, and not the mirror. Although the heat on the mirror was just enough for us to stay strong and hold our heads high.

The irony here is that the mirror is so fragile, yet none of us had even thought we could break it. But one day that changed. One day I heard your words, prayers, and sometimes cries for help. I did not know what it was, only that it came from the mirror. I walked closer to the mirror and started seeing more clearly the transparency of it. I did not know there was another room there, but I saw a girl there and she piqued my interest.

Who is she? Who knows. Maybe a light in the form of a body, with a face and attributes, yet still blurry. Maybe a canvas that was painted with a face, a voice, an aura, but not by my paint. Or maybe a real person, both cursed and gifted by the human condition, instantiated by the Universe, just in a room next door. She was the form that I saw in the mirror and the content, that I was making up instead when I did not see her. The definition I am most content with is "being". A being of her own, experiencing life as directly as possible.

At first, I only saw her through a blur, not being able to see her expression clearly. I saw her looking right at me, trying to wave, verbalizing, but then I realized it wasn't me she was looking at, it was the mirror. She could not see me behind it. At several points, when I tried to make contact, she almost looked like she was talking back to me, I even thought we were making a dialogue, but then it dawned on me that it was just the mirror again that was the subject of her interest. But one day I poked a hole through a mirror. It was a small one, she could probably only see a little part of me through it. That is why she probably thought that part of me was just a part of the mirror. But then I started poking more holes, just enough so my eyes could fit. And then I saw her. Alone and scared, yet standing strong and determined. With tears in her eyes, but smiling. She was building a pyramid from different colored bricks. The pyramid was weird, because it was missing one brick, and the top was being held up by her hand. At the same time, it was familiar, because I was building a similar pyramid myself, but it needed scaffolding as well. She looked tired, but she held it on her own and looked as though she could hold it for another 100 years. Although sometimes the lack of the brick in the middle made her bawl her eyes out, she would quickly wipe her tears and hold the top of the pyramid with even more determination, even cracking a smile. Even if the pyramid was brickless, it did not look like the brick was even necessary. Looking back, I tried communicating with the girl and she finally saw me, or at least a small part of me, as everything else was still hidden. Then the mirror started breaking down on its own, as if the Universe itself was happily destroying it, finally deciding to act. When the hole was big enough for me to fit through, I came over to her side, to her room, and offered her a brick that I had but could not use by myself. She accepted it with a smile, telling me she would take care of it well. And then she gave me a brick of her own that could not fit her pyramid, but fit mine. We became each other's pillars, each other's heat source. We made the two rooms into one big room and the mirror was no longer needed. And then we held each other tight and never let go.

We were both beings and experiences of each other. We were both abysses and the lights, who we wanted to gaze at either way. We were both canvases, painted by the Universe, but also highlighted by the paint of feelings. We were both real instances of what we saw in the mirror.

Surprise surprise, the girl... It's you. You were my Friend. An experience at first that, after some time, also became a being.

So there you go. Now you know who I am. Now let's face the world together, tied by more than just us as ideas, but also us as beings.

Love and gratitude.

- Your Friend

(April 14th, 2024)