LETTER OF SUPPORT

In this hamster wheel world of ours

you may just have to

play the ghostwriter and

impersonate somebody

that’s not you

to get what you need.

It’s darn near protocol

these days that

the requester write the missive,

and the advocate simply sign it.

What’s so wrong

with that arrangement,

really—

the taking on of

another’s voice

to pen your own testimonial?

In the process you become

the cheerleader and the champion,

the admirer

and the admired.

What a perfect paradox

and marriage that is,

the I and the other

are one,

praise and gratitude

are singularly sourced.

We should all write

letters like this

for ourselves,

so the idea of

acknowledgement

and validation

becomes less pedantic

and more prosaic, and is

finally accepted as the vernacular,

the idiom of the day.