dear newspaper editors-

i was at sunday’s featured rally, but i forgot the candidate’s name, so in the end could not vote for her. but i remember the arena roared as she took the stage, and everyone cried into their sleeve coats and applauded through the tips of their fingers and stomped their feet until their toes bled.

she told us she was born in a hot-air balloon to a doctor and his wife. together they fled the heat, the plagues, the wars, and instead drifted over the surface of it. those of us who see know that all is burning, comrades, yet she knows the forgiving rain and the cold of starless nights.

onstage she took the mic. we had lost our fair share, she said and nodded along with us. but that was not our fault! when she made words, she looked us in the eye, and i could tell she felt those words barreling through her spleen and down through her ankles. she claimed power to do no end of things for us. i can’t remember them, but they sounded nice, and i remember thinking she truly knew me and knew what i wanted out of life. her voice cleared away the things in my brain, so i could finally see where it all went wrong.

she was a good woman, and not at all cold like the papers and tv’s accused her of. they will not let us have her. she is too good for us, we don’t deserve her. they think we are people not to be known, not to be seen in public with. that we are sad and our lives are short. and so they are, but not for their making them so.

i told all this to your reporter on my way out the rally, and that reporter put what i said in your paper, but she didn’t spell my name right. and when i called your office to tell them so, the man on the other end asked me what business i had seeing that woman and wasn’t i ashamed of myself. then he asked me what i liked best about her, and i said it was her voice, the way it rose and fell, gliding, free floating, never bothered with coming down. when he asked if i remembered what she said, i said i couldn’t, but they were wonderful things.

please note the spelling of my name for next time.

yours,

x