The Letter You're Afraid to Send

No client's letter ever goes in my window. This one's nobody's. A demo: what you'd send at 1am, what I'd write, the strikes between.

What you'd send: “i know you're busy but i miss you. i'm not asking for anything, i just wish you'd text me in the daytime sometimes.”

Struck: “i know you're busy”: you're handing him a defense he didn't earn. “i'm not asking for anything”: you are. Say it out loud or don't send it. “sometimes”: a small word doing a coward's work. You don't want sometimes.

The letter: You texted at 1:12. I answered at 1:13. That one minute is the whole problem. I want to be a person who was asleep.

What I'd like to say: you're a coward with a nice mouth who knows exactly what he's doing, and I see it. I do see it. Seeing it has never once stopped me from picking up.

I don't want your morning. I know what your mornings look like, and they don't have me in them. I want you at 1am to say one thing that costs you. That's all. I've been waiting nine months, which isn't waiting, it's a habit I've been calling hope.

So this is the last one. Not a threat. I'm closing the window.

If you text at 1am again I'll be asleep. And if I'm not, I'll leave the phone on my chest, let it buzz, and find out what I'm like when nobody answers for me either.

You can write in the daytime. I'd read it. I'm just done being the late shift.

Receipt: the letter I wrote for myself took eleven strikes from a stranger. The whys are published.

First line free: [email protected]. Who it's for, one true thing only you know about them. No letter in it? I say so, you lose nothing. Lands? $25, 72 hours, one revision. Yours to send, keep, or never deliver.