Prompts · 15 min
Write a letter to the version of you the internet knows.
There is a version of you that lives online. A best-of reel with the boring parts, the ugly parts, the confused parts edited out. This is a letter from you to her, or him, or them.
Start with the words: Dear you, the one they think they know,
Then keep going. Tell them what they leave out. Tell them what you have been carrying that never made the grid. Tell them what you would rather be known for. Tell them, if you can, that you don't hate them — they were doing their best with the tools the internet gave them.
If you get stuck, try these openings
- What no one saw the day of that photo was…
- The version of me they will never meet is…
- What I actually want to be witnessed for is…
- The thing I stopped posting about is the thing that saved me. It was…
You are not required to be legible to strangers to be real.
When you are done, do not post it. Do not screenshot a line of it. Close the notebook. Let it be the first thing in a long time that was written only for you.
The unposted life is not a lesser life. It may, in fact, be the only real one you have.
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