(Currently Untitled)
an excerpt

I had just turned nineteen when I was killed. I remember you sent me a letter written in green ink, and a drawing of the wildflowers on the seacoast of home. You sent me drawings in all your letters, sometimes just little birds sketched in the margins of the letter paper, sometimes more intricate images of your left hand and the ring, or of Zeus, my old cat. I remember your drawings more than the words you wrote, and I hope you can understand why. Your drawings took me immediately to you. Especially that last one. You didn’t draw it like a photograph, though you could have. Instead, you made everything splotchy, all the colors running into each other. Maybe it was really a painting, I’m sorry I don’t know. Anyway, you made the sun filter through grey clouds, and some of the flowers were blooming, and some were dying, and there was a flattened place in the grass big enough for two people. You made it just like it looked the day we had our first kiss, and I smiled at the muddy way it looked, just like a memory.

I treasured every letter you sent. I kept them up in the crown of my helmet, so they’d stay dry—I think the ink might still have run a bit, but I did the best I could. I hope you get them back, now that I’m gone. Just so you know that I cared.