Dear Ryan,

This e-mail has been written about five times. It is 1:09 AM. This IS a warning. Stop reading this email as soon as the thought, “Eli is a moron” starts to stir in your brain gills. So what is it that I want to say to you? Happy Birthday! There is an excuse why I didn’t say this on your actual birthday, but heck! You don’t need that! You just need a Happy Birthday! Well, I hope that’s all you need. I hope you don’t need me to ask about how your ACTUAL birthday went or some half-hearted grabbing questions about what you did. I trust you’ll tell me all the interesting bits of your life all on your own and that I don’t need to make an attempt at pulling a conversation out of you in order to make you feel like I’m listening!

Jeez, there’s a better way to put this… Ah forget it. I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

~paragraph deleted~ ~another paragraph deleted here~ ~more paragraphs deleted here: scary paragraphs~ ~sappy deleted paragraphs: blah blah dogs, uncles, my sleeping sister who protects me and will never know it~ ~deleted~

Now I’m wondering if you’ll even get what I’m trying to say. If it can be understood. I think I should say it as plainly as possible: Ryan I respect how sweet a girl you were during that summer. I do not miss you or feel regret or longing for love. I just simply remember you as an amazingly kind person. This may or may not be what actually happened. I might be confabulating! But, Why should I tell you this? What feelings do I want to evoke in you? Just pride.

I had an idea for a poetry collection. It would be obituaries for people in my life who have not died yet, but whom I respected enormously. I’d write you an obituary. What do I mean when I say these things? Perhaps, it’s as if you don’t exist as a tangible person anymore—you’ve become one of my characters. Or you have become a characteristic that I file under Noble Traits. Or maybe your name is under Noble People. How do I write an obituary poem for living people? Is it even a worthy idea? Should I bother to be moved by any of my ideas? I feel foolish when I say to myself, “Yes, this idea is worthy.”

Here’s another question: Why should Ryan have to deal with a emotionally-out-of-control, email-ranting Eli? Well, bluntly, you’re the only person I email on a regular basis. Don’t blow that out of proportion. I wouldn’t be emailing you if you hadn’t out-of-the-blue emailed me after an entire year with no communication. Even if you have ulterior motives, I’d say keeping in touch is what the sweet girl Ryan would do. She would keep in touch with old friends. How did this degrade from a wish to convey positive birthday feelings into a self study of hysteria?! Where do I go from here? It’s a maze of branching neurological pathways! My thoughts are not a chain but a web! I make the web but I’m no spider!

Sincerely.

-E. Wurdle

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