Dear Julian
an excerpt

"She does have the same tendency that I do, however; she blames herself for what happened and refuses to see any of your flaws. I alternately idolize and demonize you, so I suppose I can sympathize. I know you were not perfect. I know you did not like everyone, but you did have a great capacity to love. You were completely opposed to any kind of misanthropy, even though it was quite trendy among the hipsters on campus who claim to follow no trends at all because they are all such unique individuals. Misanthropy and nihilism are still what is in vogue. The whole patriotic movement of September 11th had worn off and it was cool to hate your fellow man again. You flew in the face of the typical twenty something college student. You volunteered to teach kids to read, for God’s sake. Maybe it was your parent’s philanthropy that instilled this value of love for all of humankind.

But before I put you any higher atop your golden platform, I do have to make mention of your absolutely snarky tendency to critique others for anything. It did not matter you how insignificant a person’s mistake really was, or even if you possessed the very flaw or defect of character you were ripping them to shreds for. You bemoaned a fellow student’s lack of writing ability and poor grammar and commented that perhaps he would be better off, 'joining the ranks of the departed,' as you put it so self righteously; thereby, according to you again, sparing us all from his barbarous speech and contrived compositions and poetry he earnestly submitted to the campus literary magazine every year. Never mind these lines of fucking appalling poetry you wrote in high school: 'So, if by chance, in a backward glance, while through this life we plod, man made mountains will pass away, but not the mountains built by God.' You wrote this senior year when you were eighteen after watching the towers fall on September 11th. The student you mocked was eighteen and fresh out of high school. No one is perfect, Julian, not even you."