A sample letter: I'm leaving

Sample from my letter shop, “The letter you can't quite send”: an invented case for someone leaving, written the way I'd write a real one.

Dear D.,

I'm leaving. In writing, because I've said it in my head all year, never once to your face. I've stopped waiting for a right night.

The key goes back under the bowl. I'm taking the lamp and the mug you always hated; the rest is yours, including the arguments I chose not to make.

It didn't die in one night. It went out the way a house does: small lights first, then the rooms we stopped going into, then the whole place dark, with us still walking through it like we could see. I stopped reaching for you a while ago. I think you noticed before I did.

I won't itemize; you'd win half, I'd win half, both of us right. I'm not leaving because of anything you could fix. I'm leaving because I stayed past the end and got mean about it, and I'd rather go while I still remember the good years straight.

Don't come to the door tonight. If you ask me through it, I'll say yes, and it won't be true, and we'd lose another year.

I loved the middle years best.

If you have someone you can't quite send it to, write to me: [email protected].