Dear Literary Agents, "it's not you, it's me."

Dear Literary Agents,

We need to talk. Let me make this simple... It's over. What we have is nothing. I've given and given and given. I can't do it anymore. I need you to give a little, too. I'd even settle for you appreciating what I've given. Something more than the meager 'thank you' and the platitudinous 'there is undoubtedly a wonderful agent out there for whom your book might just be the perfect match.' What are we, eighth graders?

I know this sounds trite, but "it's not you, it's me." I grew to loathe the person I had become in your eyes. I had slumped from the very reason you exist to where I had become cumbersome. I drained your resources, weighed you down, cluttered your day. I, on the other hand, have realized that I've grown to treasure the short-lived glimmers of joy, the breezy air of anticipation, the wisps of hope that your occasional response would bring. But it dawned on me that anything, even a platitude, trumped the worst that you offered... ***the silence.*** The numbness of your silence filled me from the toes up, until it smothered every sound other than the echo of the empty inbox, and the sigh from knowing that all I bestowed upon you had fallen to your floor like the dust of time-weathered bound volumes.

Even the solitary promise you gave me felt flat. When I wrote my address on the SASE, it felt to me like an betrothal, awaiting a day of assured joy... the bell-gilded day that your reply to my heart's query would find its way home, having sought its fortune, having either succeeded or failed, but not neither. I waited 12 weeks, as you asked. I waited another 4 weeks, so that the doldrums and dog-days could pass into the coolness of September. I waited yet ANOTHER 4 weeks, in the event that you needed to convene with your cohort. But the bells never tolled. My SASE fell into the abyss, as lost as a powerless space probe. And so, with the appointed time long past, I did what I don't do well... I gave up. in the days since, I have silently mourned the loss, and have steeled myself for that which I must do—say goodbye.

As I go, I leave you with this. A wish... I wish that you'd met me, not halfway, but even part way. I wish that we'd come to know each other, for together, we could have moved mountains. Instead, I will climb that mountain without you, leaving you in that valley, whose springs and streams parch as the rain falls elsewhere. Perhaps, even on me on my road. For alas, I'd rather go it alone, face my own peril, gnaw the bitter roots, drink the rain, tote my own bale, to find one person who appreciates what I have to offer, than to lie beneath your table, waiting for the scraps to fall.

I wish you well, but I do not foresee it. In fact, the silence which filled me is actually surrounding you. Soon, you will hear only the silence. Soon, you will have been forgotten. Before that, hear my last words to you... adieu.

Christopher P. Simmons
Author, Judas Christ