dear john

 Dear John,

I don’t imagine that you will ever read this letter. Maybe that makes it easier to write. Funny, you are just as much of a nameless face to me as I was to you. I was just a body. You were just a John, one of many men who paid to use me. Nothing about you stands out to me, except that you were my last. My last customer. My last user. My last human that saw me as nothing but an object to be purchased because you had the money and I had a need. A need to eat. A need to sleep. A need to be loved and valued. Somehow, this crazy, messed up world threw us together. And, since you were last, you rise from a plethora of faces and interactions, to become the one who was my last john.

So, it is to you that I write my letter of freedom. 

I had mashed potatoes and pork today. It was delicious. I ate it at a table with other girls who have been rescued. And we sat down, and we prayed, and we ate – just like human beings, just like people do. And I had no fear that someone would hit me. And I didn’t pay for it with my body. I just sat down and I ate and I was full. 

It was beautiful.

You might be surprised to know that I made that meal. You didn’t know that I could cook. Actually, I didn’t it either, until I moved into the house and was required to take my turn in the kitchen. I cooked for twenty people today. I fed twenty people. I did it with joy. I felt free and powerful and valuable because I could provide for someone else’s needs.

You told me once that what you made me do was meeting needs. That was a lie. The acts that I did for you fed your lust and created a hunger in you that will never be satisfied. 

Tomorrow, I begin a cooking course. If I can finish, I will have a future. I will have a way to provide for myself and for the baby.

Yes, the baby. When I got to the shelter, the first thing that they did was give me a pregnancy test. It was positive. I don’t imagine that you are the father, but as I said, as my last, you have a place of distinction. 

I face my future with fear but hope. I wonder how you feel about yours?

The house here is warm, and clean, and safe. There is a light that I have never known and it shines both day and night. 

Sleep well, John.

Anna