DEAR JOHN LETTERS

A COLLECTION OF LETTERS FOR FREEDOM SUNDAY

[Letter 1 from a Safe House]

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…