unwritten letter I | Caileigh Sawyer
This may find you displeased.
Perhaps my name still echoes raw in the hollow of your voice,
or else dissolves entirely,
a word unfastened from meaning.
I got a dog—
a tri-color corgi,
all teeth and stubborn eyes,
a little tyrant
you can’t help but love.
I took up photography,
not the kind you abandon in a week.
The lens still hangs heavy in my hands,
even if I click it less.
Do you remember those photoshoots?
Us posing in tall grass,
light slanting through—
awkward, reckless,
but proof we were there.
I’m still in school,
clinging to notes and screens.
One day, I’ll stand at the front of the room,
not wander the world writing novels
like I once swore I would.
I want a porch light,
neighbors who wave,
the kind of belonging
you first placed in my palms.
Sometimes at night,
I see us again,
roaming streets at midnight,
your phone glowing like a lantern
as we hunted Pokémon
I didn’t even know the names of.
Later, behind the wheel,
we screamed Lemonade Mouth
down Hill Road,
the wind swallowing us whole,
our voices brighter than sirens,
louder than any ticket could be.
Do you remember when the world shut down?
Our parents locked the doors,
but you baked cookies anyway—
left them steaming on my porch,
stood outside the glass
like a ghost with a smile.
That was love,
the kind that survives
in crumbs and fogged windows.
I don’t regret him,
not the way you hope.
My life folds itself around him,
the way it once curled
like a vine around you.
I’m sorry for the wreckage
my teenage self scattered.
But grudges rust.
We outgrow the sharp edges.
What cut deepest
wasn’t your silence,
but the hollow sound
of leaving behind
the only world I knew
Caileigh Sawyer is a senior English student at UAlbany. This is her first time being published. She enjoys reading, photography and playing with her corgi.