To All the Places I’ve Loved Before

By Veronica Klash

The Writer’s Block

Dear Writer’s Block,

You’re the only one I’ve visited during this pandemic, this trying time, this portent of madness, this descent into isolation. If I were to search your shelves, how many of your books would feature the word pandemic? How many would warn of its effects and devastation? How many would get it wrong?

What does it say about me that I can’t bring myself to sit in a restaurant, even outside, but I have crossed your threshold many times? I don’t linger like I used to, touch the books like I used to. Instead of walking through your quirky alcoves and picking up tomes letting my fingers explore the pages, I click on a picture on my laptop, I type my credit card number and I wait. I wait for you to email me and say, Come.

Come to me and I will hold you briefly. I will remind you that some things never change.

Do you say that to anyone else? Or just to me?

Love,
Veronica K.

Mothership Coffee in Fergusons Downtown

My Precious Mothership,

Sometimes it was just the two of us. Sometimes I invited a third. You were always dressed to the nines, and my eyes couldn’t wait to drink every bit of you. Every line and curve and texture. The veins in your marble countertop. The chill of your smooth, poured concrete walls. The sunlight swarming your interior, filling you up completely. I basked in the magnificence of it all. You replenished me.

Since the arrival of this new plague, this young pestilence, I ordered your beans to drink at home. Ground them into the stuff dreams are made of. It’s not the same. Even if I close my eyes, use all the muscles in my face and shutter them so soundly that phantoms of light appear, it’s not the same. We are too far and I wish you were here.

Yours truly,
V.K.

Rooster Boy Café

Hello Darling,

I remember when we met. You were petite but not delicate. I could tell immediately that you were one to adore. On my way to you I’d get lost in anticipation and desire. Writing odes not on paper or keyboard but on the minutes it would take to arrive at your table.

You smelled of home and habit. Decadence and depth. Time with you meant being nourished and nurtured. It meant leaving with a smile and warmth that lasted all day. All day.

I think of you most in the mornings. When the air is cool and the light is grey. When the rest of the world still slumbers. When there’s a hunger raging inside me that regular food won’t quell.

Love you always,
Veronica

Velveteen Rabbit

Hey You,

The nights we spent together, you and I, were pure beauty and ecstasy. Your creativity and sense of adventure kept me coming back. But not too often, not too soon, so as not to tarnish our time with repetition and now, now I wish I had visited every day, tried every drink, sat in every chair.

Now I miss you the most. I picture myself in your arms again. In this image I’m wearing something lacey, a sliver of a thing and you are grand and gorgeous. You are warm and inviting. You scoop me up and carry me into the night on wisps of Mescal and rosemary. On hints of bourbon and marshmallow. Beneath a crushed velvet sky on a pastel patio. You added those chairs I hate. The ones that cut into wide hips. But I forgive you. I’d forgive you so many things.

XOXO
V.

Gilcrease Orchard

Hello Gilcrease,

You were the autumn affair I looked forward to during stifling, sticky summers. The light at the end of the torrid tunnel. Every year I marveled at you and what you managed to create. I’d feast on your offerings, the cool, crisp taste of you lingering on my tongue. Sustaining my fall fix in a city that reduces the seasons to shower taps—hot and cold.

I’m not an idiot. You’re spectacular and I knew I’d have to share you, but did it have to be with so many?

I could blame our separation on the pandemic. I could say that you drew too many crowds, even for the outdoors. That people were craving you and your quaint sensibility now more than ever. That they need you more than I do. But the truth is you’ve gotten far too popular for my hipster heart and I loved you better when you were a secret I shared with a season.

Goodbye,
V. Klash

Area 15

Hi,

Sorry to slide into your DMs, but I had to tell you. You came onto the scene with a splash. I scrolled through your Instagram feed like an angry ex. I was craving images of you. Even if those images showed you spending time with countless others. Even if those images wouldn’t ever include me. At least not now. Not yet.

In the pictures you look beautiful and exciting. Magical even. But doesn’t everyone? Isn’t that what Instagram is for? What if when I do finally see you in person it’s not the same? The colors aren’t as saturated, the visuals aren’t as arresting. What then? Will I carry my disappointment quietly back to the car or will I be excited just to be somewhere new, after all this time? After all this waiting? Will it matter if neither one of us is the same as we were in the pictures?

Yours (someday),
Veronica

Veggy Street

Hey Veggy,

I didn’t know you in the before times. I’ve never been to your home. But you’ve been to mine. Many times. Bringing the comfort of the familiar. You’ve muffled the echos of my frustrated cries or screams with the softness of buns, reassurance of meat. The meat isn’t real but the feeling is. The knowing that things will be okay. That nothing lasts forever.

In the after times I will come to your door. The afternoon sun hot at my back. I won’t knock because we’re old friends, and we’ve been through a lot together. You’ll smile and welcome me and we’ll hug. We’ll hug for a long time. And I’ll stay. In your home instead of mine. I’ll stay.

Thank you,
Veronica K.

Veronica Klash is a Folio Award-winning essayist, a Senior Reader, and occasional Flash Fiction Editor for Witness. Her fiction has been anthologized most recently in What I Thought of Ain't Funny, a collection inspired by the comedy of the late Mitch Hedberg. A regular contributor to NPR’s publication, Desert Companion, Veronica is currently working on a short story collection set in Las Vegas. Visit her website, veronicaklash.com for more.

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Kathleen KuoApril 12, 2021G1 Comment