Dearest Etcetera,
Before I begin, I would like to ask you to forgive me for resorting to doing something this cowardly to tell you how I feel. Believe me when I say, I have tried, many times, to tell you the things I am going to tell you in this letter but I am extremely shy and pathetic: I plan out exactly what I say to you but then when I look at you they vanish from my mind because ... well it's you. When I look at you, I loose the ability to form comprehensible thoughts and words. It's hard enough to talk to you anyway, because, as I said, I am extremely shy: I constantly worry about making a fool of myself around you and I have a recurring nightmare in which I pour my heart out to you and reject me.
At least if I write you my feelings, you can't reject me to my face.
Etcetera, I ...
I love you.
It sounds so meaningless but I really can't think of any other way to say it: I have the feelings but I don't have the words to tell you how I feel. If I were a better writer, I could compare your eyes to the stars or something ... but I don't know how.
You're just so lovely and I feel for you so deeply that I cannot even begin to describe how I feel. I'm not sure if I even fully understand these feelings, because I know that I have never felt this way before. I couldn't even tell you how long I have loved you, but I do know that I cannot remember a time in my life where I wasn't in love you.
I do hope you recieve this letter, because it took all of my courage to send it. I'm just sorry that it wasn't the great poetry you deserve, because you deserve all of those things: you deserve red-roses, extravagant gifts, fireworks and declarations of love, using only the most beautiful of words because those are the only words that deserve to be said to you. You deserve a tom who is handsome, a tom who is brave enough to love you when he is with you and not just when he's alone.
You deserve a tom who will serenade you, as Growltiger serenaded the Lady Griddlebone. You deserve a tom who will dance with you as Plato dances with Victoria. A tom who can give you pretty things, as Mungojerrie gives pretty things to Rumpleteazer. You deserve a tom who can entertain you, as Mistofflees entertains the rest of the tribe. You deserve a tom who will stop at nothing to protect you, as Munkustrap does for Demeter. You deserve the moon, the stars and the sun.
But Etcetera, dear sweet Etcetera, I am not what you deserve.
And I will always hate myself for not being that tom.
Please do not feel obliged to reply to this letter: I understand that you do not love me, that you could never love me. I did not write this letter because I wanted a reply. I wrote this letter to tell you that I love you. I have always loved you and I will continue to love you and even when I have been in the Heaviside Layer for so long that I have forgotten everything else about my old life, I will continue to remember you and everything about you and I will continue to love you and everything about you.
- Admetus