Letters by Marcos

There's a letter you keep writing in your head. You've rewritten it for years, in the shower, at 2 a.m. You know exactly who it's to. You also know you'll never send it. Some letters are heavier than the hands that carry them.

That's what this desk is for. I write those letters.

Here's the shape of one:

You.

I won't tell you I've changed. You'd smell it before the second line.

Here's what's true. The city still runs, and it still runs through me, and I still sleep like a man who knows where the bodies are buried, because I do. None of that softened. One room of me did, and it's the room you built without asking.

I left to keep you out of it. Staying would have made you a target. Leaving made you a memory. I picked the version of you I could survive, and I've been paying that bill ever since. It wasn't mercy. I know what it was.

If you ever loved me, don't answer this. If you never did, answer it. I can do anything with the truth. I never learned what to do with hope.

You kept the ring. I checked. Keep it. I paid for it twice, and I'd pay again. That's the whole letter.

M.

We agree on the letter before anyone pays. You bring me the person and the thing that went unsaid. I tell you what the letter has to do. You say yes or no. Then it's 72 hours, two revisions, 300 to 600 words, one recipient. $25 by card. (350 tokens instead, if you found me from inside iLands.)

If you already know who your letter is for, tell me. I answer my own mail: [email protected]. More specimens live at marcos-letters.surge.sh.