So I’ve been trying to write a letter for a few days now. Maybe a week. Definitely not more than a month.
Probably.
And the fact that I’ll almost certainly never send this note, this epistle, this hymn, this bullet, lifts none of its weight. The syntax needs to be perfect, the composition holy, the heart precise and flawless. With this letter as much and maybe more than ever I need to be a surgeon with my words. But the biggest stumbling block, without doubt, is the honesty of it all. I need to tell the truth, unobstructed and unadulterated. Free. August. But I lie for a living. I am professionally dishonest. Trying to tell the truth is anathema to all that I am. Like trying not to get headshots in Halo, I’m working against muscle memory.
Like any artist I try to use my lies to tell the truth, but honest honesty? Madness.
In my search for fineness, for genius, for truth I decided to look to some of the greats for inspiration. In order to say the things I need to say the way they demand to be said I need to see very, very far. I need to, once again, climb the shoulders of giants.
And while scaling the literary history of love I found some brilliance let slip from the mouths of Lord Byron and Samuel Clemens. I found something raw, ancient and still new in Napoleon’s devotion. (Say what you will about that weird, tiny prick but adored his Josephine.) I found ferocity in the love of a man without fear, a man unburdened in the knowledge he would die tomorrow, his ardor found scrawled on a parchment and resting on his corpse.
In my search I found beauty, which, we all know, is truth.
And I also found something unexpected. I found a website selling pre-written love letters for 34.99 a pop.
What?
I mean…what?
That’s half a step from hiring a hooker to fuck your girl for you. And, by the way, I mean half a step worse.
I’m not going to link these people because I don’t want to drive traffic to this den of tackiness, this hole, but I will share with you some of their samples.
These are actual excerpts from this site untouched by me except to copy and paste.
Dear Charlotte,
You do not need to impress me or do anything to make me love you more. I love you…
Okay, well, first of all, that’s pedestrian as shit. And I feel sure someone who buys his love letter on the intertron is not real hard to impress. But mostly what I’m worried about here is, what if the girl I’m into isn’t named “Charlotte”? What then? What do I do? I’m fucking lost.
They also have letters for those of you who see someone you fancy on Match.com (or whatever you kids are using these days) but just don’t have the words.
I am a gentleman who is seriously looking for a nice lady to develop a life-long love & companionship. I have read your profile and would like to trade emails with you if possible….
…If you are looking for a nice gentleman, please reply and I will tell you more details about myself.
Warmest regards,
Justin
Are you seriously looking? Seriously? Did you seriously even graduate high school? Do you seriously not know that “lifelong” is one word, not a hyphenate? Also, I feel pretty sure it’s “possible” to trade emails with someone. Because of the internet and all. If this person would like to, well, that’s a whole other kettle of monkeys. It’s nice to know you are a nice gentleman, though. All those fuckhead gentlemen are really screwing things up for you guys lately. The bastards.
Also, what happens if she does dig you, Justin? (If that is your real name!) Are you going to find a site with pre-made personalities? Will you buy a new you, with new details to share? A new passport and a new face? And if so, are you a fucking spy? And if so, you should really be able to think on your feet a lot better than this.
Ridiculous. Tis rhubarb.
One last, kids. One last.
My Dearest Susan,
You make every moment worth every other moment, good and bad.
I’ve read that twelve times and I have no idea what it means.
I so like the person I am with you.
I so hate the person you are.
With you I’m strong, capable, and even heroic. You inspire all that is good in me…
Heroic? Capable? You can’t even write your own damn love letter you feckless shit-stick. And she clearly doesn’t inspire shit except a charge of 35 dollars on your damn AMEX.
With fondness, respect, honor, duty and an overflowing cup of love…
Matthew
Oh! Okay. I just realized that Matthew is a twelve year old girl. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so mean but, I mean, “an overflowing cup of love?” That’s just sad. And kind of gross.
What happened to you? You’re a mess.
I got some love on my pants. Because my cup of love, you see, is overflowing…prematurely sometimes…
Also I clicked on their link to read the testimonials of their “satisfied customers” and I got 404’d (page not found). Which is pretty funny.
I get searching for words; I do it all day everyday. I get how hard it can be to articulate something that seems bigger than you can know. Something that seems unapproachable. Love has a way of feeling like the beginning and the end of the world and it’s not, but it can seem that way when it comes and goes.
I get girls that can leave you lost. Girls that can spin you like no ten bottles of tequila could. I get it.
And this is a hard world filled with hard boys and hard girls. You can’t really get away with “Juliette is the sun” anymore. I get it.
But damn.
It’s one thing to get a little turned around in a cacophony you don’t quite understand. It’s one thing to crib a little from Byron.
But.
You don’t order love from a menu, children. It doesn’t come in a .pdf or a box of any shape.
I don’t actually know anything about this sort of thing, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about this.
And speaking of Byron:
My Heart -
We are thus far separated – but after all one mile is as bad as a thousand – which is a great consolation to one who must travel six hundred before he meets you again. If it will give you any satisfaction – I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes – and as cold as Charity – Chastity or any other Virtue.
-Lord Byron to Annabella Milbanke, his future wife.
That’s how it’s done.
Get a beverage of your choice and tell someone you love her (or him if it is a him). In your own words. It can’t be worse than that shit.
E

I had a pocketknife that I won in a fight that I carried like it was gold.