the most beautiful letter I have ever received:
note from me: she is the best friend I never met.
(actual letter type-written on a typewriter)
hi. i hope you don't mine that i don't like capitalizing letters... it just takes too long and i love the consistency of lowercase letters.
i have lots of paper and a very nice day to spend on you. i wonder if it is as nice in your front yard as it is in mine today.
and there's something about typewriters that makes it just that much nicer.
what a horrible way to start a letter. my apologies.
what i mean to say is that you are very beautiful and i think if i were a butterfly that could flutter from state to state, i would come visit you and land on your nose just to hear you laugh at me. sometimes i wish you didn't live so far away and i could decide to see you whenever i had an extra rainy day or some music to spare.
though rainy
days don't seem much
at all like hair ties and
i've never found an extra
song when mine
goes
flat
but i would still come visit you.
today is feeling very much like a deleted scene in a movie
the way it is scripted and planned and looks nice
but the music is missing
because it didn't need
any
it would have been nice anyways just for someone to appreciate all of the effort of your work and thought and heart that went into something that wasn't kept because let's face it
we're all deleted scenes in someone's movie
i just hope you're not one in mine
and i am not one in yours
because you are
very
very
very
very very
very
very
very
worth
keeping
now I will talk about
you.
you are very important to me, but also to everyone. to life. to the world. life would be missing something if you weren't here. there would be a color misplaced from the rainbow, lost somewhere in between the stars and how the lake looks when it's raining. that's where i would miss you, even if you never were. because you always should be, you always should exist.
i think i would look for you in the ringed stains that a coffee mug leaves behind, i would listen for you in the empty bottles that still have lots to say. there would be days when the sun would decide not to say
hello
and i would think that you would very much like to be with me maybe while i listened to the rain and an old vinyl, books in our hands
and sweaters that nobody wanted
but us
and some days i wish we would have been sisters because i think i have liked that
quite a lot.
i'm just trying to figure out how
i miss you this much
when i've never even
met you
this doesn't sound anything like a letter at all, does it?
your birthday is coming up awfully soon.
i want to get you something, but what i want most to get you is a visit from me
but i don't think i can come visit you, which makes me sad
because if i had a wish for your birthday
i would probably wish to come visit you
life isn't fair sometimes.
but i want to be that person that keeps
the book
and it makes it hard when i am here and you (the book) are there
in between
the stars
and
how the lake
looks
when it's
r
a
i
n
i
n
g
i find it funny how something typed can be both impersonal and completely
vulnerably
honestly
personal
at the same time.
i wish you couldn't see the moon and the sun at the same time when it gets to a certain part of the day. i mean, who knows, maybe they're friends, but sometimes it makes me feel sad, like the way you feel when someone you love is leaving you for the first time, and they will come back and you know that but you are still unspeakably sad because even though they are coming back again... they're still leaving now. but i don't get sad for the sun.
i think too much, but i think maybe the moon is very lovesick.
but maybe he will never come.
i think maybe the sun is that friend who wants to help
the one who makes their smile extra big to tries and keep the moon
from being so sad
(because the moon doesn't always
look sad, but the sun is also that friend - the one who knows anyways)
so the sun stays a while for the moon
but the sun always has to leave
and the moon is still very sad.
i have spent an entire page of your
letter talking about the moon.
i wanted to
write about how the grass felt underneath me
(because i am typing outside)
or the way it is warm and cold at the same time
or how it is sunday but it
feels like a
thursday
or tell you that autumn is fading away much too quickly
and i still haven't had coffee with you
in chicago
underneath the bean
where we would wear warm sweaters and
big scarves and
talk about life
but i'm pretty sure i've successfully drank my weight in apple cider.
so it's not all lost.
i met a hummingbird once and i told him he probably should have learned the words
he told me i should grow wings to fly instead of
pretending
i haven't see him again
and i tried
but i couldn't
so he can
keep
humming
you know the way sometimes you want to listen to a song
so you turn it on
and then you get tired of it so you turn on
a different one
and then you
get tired of that one
so you switch songs
again
that is the way i feel right now
writing to you
deciding what i want to say
then getting tired of it and
changing
my
mind
again
and again
and again
and again
and
again
i hope it is enough just to hear from me
and read my words
without needing me to actually
say
anything
i am running out of typewriter ribbon but it was not wasted (definitely not)
i just hope this made you
~from my lovely friend Hannah, whom I refer to as my Toothless. <3
this letter is so breathtaking and I can't believe she sent it to me. and it made me cry. and I just love her so much and we haven't even met ever, how is this possible?