Our walls are thin as cellophane, and almost as translucent it seems. It’d be an understatement to say things have been rough for you, at least the way I understand it. I was there when you earned your raise, in a way, because I heard the celebration of about four or five bouncy, booming voices filling every corner of your apartment, spilling into mine. I heard you say you needed it so terribly in what I figured was a lucid, albeit ironically drunken haze. I know your son, just from seeing the two of you around the complex, and I’ve heard him cry before. About his dad. I fell asleep against the wall that night because something made me stay near his voice. When I woke up, he was probably at school and I had one hell of a neck-ache. There was a time that you yelled hurtful things, but I don’t know who received them, aside from me. I felt nearly sick that night, because something unspeakable must have happened, based on what you said. I was sorry that night; I was sorry I couldn’t reach through and tell you I didn’t think things could ever get that bad again. I was sorry I couldn’t just be there for you. So I lay awake that night and slept all day. I remember one time when your son wasn’t quite crying, but it was for lack of energy; it was a period, I supposed, that you ran into a financial hardship, and I heard you breakdown and talk to him like an adult - something I know people would reprimand you for, but all the same, something I know you had to do. No, we don’t have money for more, you yelled at him, voice breaking and I thought tears streaming, knowing with almost certainty that you were talking about food of some sort. I cooked an extra lasagna that night, but I didn’t bring it by. I threw it out three days later. I’ve heard you praying, a lot lately. When I used to hear you, I remember thinking about how funny it’d have been to speak to you as your god. Now I think only about you finding your answers, even though I know that’s not how I deal with my questions. I don’t know your name, but I sometimes smell the burning oatmeal you cook, and the hairdryer going off at 3:45 in the morning, and the small celebrations of life, and the dreadful times, and all the times in between, and I feel like I know you better than a lot of people. All I want to tell you in this correspondence is when you feel you’ve burned up your last everything and you’re just crying to a wall, it’s not just a wall. You don’t know my name either.
