Love/Hate Letters

17 Flemming Dr.

Newburgh 12550

New York

7 October 2023

Dear Lucky,

You’ve been my best friend and loyal companion for the last seven years. I still remember the day I first got you, I didn’t think I’d end up loving you like a brother, after all you’re just a dog. But it didn’t take long for me to realize how wrong I was.

I remember the first time you ran away I felt terrified that I had just lost my new friend. However instead of running off into the sunset like I thought you would, you came back home on your own. That was the moment I realized you weren’t just some dumb dog that I’d have to constantly keep on a leash, you’re an intelligent being deserving of love just like any human.

You taught me that dogs and all creatures on this Earth have emotions and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Thanks to you I can say I’ve become a much more empathetic person than I was before and I now see all life as precious.

I remember I used to be so scared of dogs. When I was little I had my fair share of encounters with dogs that wanted to turn me into their next meal so I never had any trust in dogs but you changed that. I’m not the only one either, anyone who’s come to my house that’s had a fear of dogs always leaves unexpectedly having a newfound love for them after meeting you. You’re honestly one of the best representatives of your species.

Dogs don’t live long and you’re already getting up there in age so I know the day will come when I’ll have to say goodbye. Even typing this out is making me have to hold back some tears and I’m not a person who usually cries. Every day when I’m down and blue you seem to know even when no one else can and you’re always there for me so I don’t know what I’m gonna do when you’re gone. What I do know is I’m gonna make the most of however long we have left together and try to make every moment an eternity. Even once you’re gone the memories that I’ve shared with you will always be dear to me. Even if I’m alive for another 100 years you’ll still always live in my heart. 

Thank you so much for being such an amazing friend, despite not being able to communicate with me you’ve taught me so much and I don’t even wanna think of who I’d be without you. I know you can’t read this letter but you can definitely sense how much I love you, that’s why we’re such great friends because I’ve never been great at expressing my feelings but with you no words have to be exchanged for you to know exactly what I mean.

With Much Love,

Yours Affectionately

ISMAEL MORILLO

17 Flemming Dr.

Newburgh 12550

New York

7 October 2023

Dear School,

Ever since you’ve been introduced into my life it has never been the same and I do not mean that in a good way. I still remember the day I realized just how much I hated you. It was all the way back in Pre-K when one day I just didn’t feel like going to school, I stupidly thought I had the choice. I still feel my bus driver’s massive hand gripping my wrist as he forcefully dragged me onto the bus whilst I cried and tried clinging onto my mom for dear life. Then when I got to school I spent the whole day in tears, I wasn’t even that mad I was in school, what pissed me off was the fact I had no say in the matter.

Eventually I just learned to accept it, there’s no way I can get out of going to school so I might as well just play along and get good grades until I graduate. That attitude lasted until seventh grade when I did something a little stupid. I skipped a whole month of school. I remember at first I thought I didn’t really feel like going to school that particular day so I’d take a self imposed break to mentally recover. Eventually that day turned into a month, after a while I just didn’t know how I would explain my absences when I returned so I kept skipping.

My parents knew nothing about this, every morning I would get dressed and pretend I was going to school but then I’d go into my basement and hide in a corner behind my pool table until my parents went to work. They found out after the school finally found a way to reach them and told them all about my truancy. After that day the last bit of freedom I had evaporated away. From then on my dad made sure to drive me to school everyday so I couldn’t have any opportunity to sneak away and my attendance was being watched over like it was 1984. I was also greeted with mountains of work I missed as soon as I got back and I felt trapped. Every class was suddenly ten times harder since I had no clue what was going on after being gone for so long and the days just dragged on.

 I knew that there was no way I’d be able to do this until June but I had no way out. Until Covid came and saved the day. It was a temporary relief though since online school was just too easy to skip, so I practically never attended class. Those were some of my happiest days since I would spend every day just talking to my friends online and playing video games but also my saddest days since I pretty much had accepted that I had no future since I was failing all my classes and making practically no effort to change anything which made me really depressed. Eventually though with a small nudge from my science teacher, Mrs. Carbone I started attending my virtual classes again and just barely managed to scrape by.

To this day I still occasionally skip and I’m not the most prudent when it comes to handing in my assignments however I haven’t done anything like what I did back in middle school. I don’t like school now though, I just put up with it cause I know there’s no alternative. I’m old enough to drop out now but I think I’ll just tough it out until 2025 cause I’ve made it this far and there isn’t much left.

I know this isn’t much of a hate letter and more just the story of how I’ve spent less days in school than most freshmen, however I kind of already said the main thing that causes me to hate this place so much, the fact I’ve never had a choice in the matter. Every day I’m here it feels like I’m giving up my freedom, as immature of a mindset as that is I just can’t seem to shake it no matter how hard I try. For as long as I live I’ll hate school because it’s one of the first things that taught me I don’t have control over my own life and I guess that’s one of the bitter facts of life I just can’t accept.

With Bitterness & Resentment,

Yours Disdainfully

ISMAEL MORILLO

I WIsh to Live Peacefully

I wish to live peacefully. Inner peace has always been an important thing to me in my life and trying to maintain that peace is one of the main things that guides my decision making. Whenever I feel stressed out and my heart is pounding out of my chest I make sure that I resolve whatever issue is bringing disrupting my peace, this could either be through solving the problem, changing my mindset on said problem or just plain running away from my problems.

This fixation with inner peace only started last year. I remember vividly being in my health class and Mr. Winther was teaching us about the effects of stress and how it can contribute to things such as heart disease and diabetes. That scared the crap out of me and from that moment forward I decided that I couldn’t stress about stuff and for the most part this mindset has done me a lot of good. Nowadays I don’t compare myself to others and I try not to really worry about what others think about me all because it brings me too much stress and I don’t need that in my life.

The inevitable truth of life is that as I get older the stress is gonna start piling up as my responsibilities do which will definitely jeopardize my inner peace. I think that I can for the most part avoid a lot of that stress though. One thing I try to do consistently is meditate. A good meditation session is something that makes me feel incredibly peaceful and if I can keep up the habit of meditating into the future I can keep myself in a much better state of mind no matter what life throws at me.

Jobs are probably one of the top five things adults stress about the most so I’ve put a lot of thought into what career I want. Actually that’s kind of a lie. It didn’t take me long to realize what I wanted to be but I am still thinking about how I wanna get there. When I grow up I wanna be a commercial pilot. On the surface it seems like an incredibly stressful job since everyday the lives of hundreds of people are in your hands but I don’t really see it that way. Ever since I was little I’ve just wanted to fly through the sky and touch the clouds, so achieving this dream for me would allow me to feel immensely at peace, as if my life’s purpose has been served. Also pilots spend most of their time just sitting there looking at the clouds and talking to ATC while the plane flies itself so in my eyes it’s one of the least stressful jobs a person could have.

History of my name

My name is ISMAEL. My name is the Spanish/Portuguese version of the Hebrew name Ishmael which means god listens and is the name of one of Abraham’s sons in the Old Testament. Back then my parents were really into this little book called the bible and I guess they named me after their favorite character or something. I don’t actually think I was named after anyone in particular, my parents just liked the name. Another name that was considered is Franklin Jr. since my dad’s name is Franklin but my parents don’t really like the idea of naming kids after their parents.  My parents came to a mutual decision to give me my name.

I don’t really love or hate my name. On one hand I’m glad I have a unique name but that also means my name sounds really weird and foreign to a lot of people. I also don’t like the fact that my name isn’t really easy to pronounce in English since it’s a Spanish name so people just pronounce it “Ishmael” like Abraham’s son. The fact people say it like that doesn’t really bother me since the alternative pronunciations don’t exactly roll off the tongue, in fact even I call myself Ishmael when I’m speaking English. Interestingly enough though my whole perspective on my name changes when I’m in the D.R or just around a lot of Spanish speakers since my name isn’t considered unusual and it sounds much nicer when said in Spanish. So really whether I like my name or not is pretty dependent on my geographic location.

 I don’t really know if my name really properly represents me since I only know five Ismaels, me, a salsa singer, a bus driver,  a stand up comedian and a Moroccan soccer player so I don’t really know what an Ismael should be like. However the meaning of my name “god listens” is in my experience very true, he’s a great listener, just not very talkative, kind of  like me, so I guess it represents me well.

Most people upon first hearing my name just think it’s kind of unusual and a lot of people scramble to come up with some kind of nickname for me so they don’t have to learn how to say it. Also anyone who reads books immediately brings up the first line from Moby Dick when they hear my name. I’ve never read the book but I feel like I should just because of that.

 I’d never change my name but if I could change it my three choices would probably be Romeo, Michael or Bob. Romeo because I think it’s just a cool name and my favorite artist is Romeo Santos. Michael because a lot of cool people have that name, like Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan plus “Mike Morillo” just has a nice ring to it. And Bob just because in my opinion it’s kind of a goofy name and I don’t know why that makes it appealing to me but it just kind of does and also it’s just really easy to write.