{ “Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.” }

[delga]

No. No, no, no, no, no. You do not type a letter. You type letters to your bank or your solicitor or to your local government authority about the crazy woman down the street with the giant society-menacing dogs You do not type a letter to real people. To real people you get a pen and put your fuck-awful scrawl on paper. You make that effort. You give something away. You give it away by hand. From my hand to your hand; from my mouth to your ears. You smudge the ink on the line above as you move down to the next one. You make spelling errors; you join two words together out of habit. Your lines are not parallel, they are on a jaunt to the furthermost corner of the page. Your paper is cheap-and-or-ugly; it's torn from a spiralbound notebook; it's the inside of the envelope because you have one last thing to say and there's no more space on the paper, or it's the back of old wrapping paper because, fuck, yes, again you forgot to buy more letter sheets, even as you write your shopping lists on the backs of old receipts. You run out of paper; you run out of ink; the blue biro junks and leaves clots and then the only thing you'e got is something in black, gel pen probably, because god knows, if you're going to change it up now you'd best go all the way. You have no envelopes. You have no stamps. You don't know the postcode; you forget to post it for a week and then you think, is it still worth sending? and a month later you're writing another letter, all, "so, I scrapped my last letter because," you know, that's how it is, and this time, yes! you have stamps, yes! you have envelopes, yes! you have the address in full and you're going past a pillar box on the way to the store to pick up wrapping paper for someone's birthday and also cake and also, yes, okay, so I'll take two bottles of the red, no, thank you, I have my own bag. You push it into the postbox; it wavers; you have to push it further. And then it's gone, my hand to your your hand. My mouth to your ear.

You write a letter. You don't type it. You give something away.

Comments

[atlashrugged.livejournal.com]

I owe you a letter from last September. It's three pages and rambling and smeared and there was a brief apology, but I moved past that. I drew a duck named Hamilton. (?????)

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Which is also in the category of 'write, don't type': DUCKS.

I can wait. I'm patient. Ish. You at the same address still?

[perverseparagon.livejournal.com]

I read this. I look at the letter I've had pinned to my noteboard amongst ticket stubs and, yes, lists on the back of receipts. I re-read this. I thought 'hey i'll buy some stamps soon....'

I probably won't, but just so you know - thinking of you :)

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, yes, this is a ~familiar process! Mwah.

[raucousraven.livejournal.com]

Wow. I love this. I LOVE this.