Dear Letters of the Alphabet,

We regret to inform you

of the untimely death

of one of your brethren, lowercase i.

Gone missing a while back,

we were hoping for its return

to its rightful place in the alphabet,

but alas,

it could not survive the I-me-mine

culture’s fixation

and dependency upon

uppercase I, a.k.a., the big I.

It has gotten so bad

that whenever it is about U,

it somehow becomes a matter of I,

and if it’ s about ME,

it is still about I,

leaving the poor M and E

feeling flat and not needed.

That being said,

society’s unhealthy obsession

with the Big I

has left us no choice

but to force this vowel

to stand trial.

Whether or not

the Big I is to blame

for its role in the I-centric

attitude and lexicon

of modern society,

I cannot say.

What I can state, unequivocally:

the Big I has grown more and more inflated,

monstrously obscene,

 if you’ll indulge

me a dash of hyperbole,

and as a consequence of this

bloated inflation,

the Big I has suffered a great loss

in both value and meaning.

And so, Letters of the Alphabet,

I’ll conclude my text

by beseeching each and every one

of you to be present at the trial

–remember every letter counts

and holds equal value—

and to please keep alive

the memory of little I,

and let its passing

serve as a grave reminder:

when the last letter falls,

there can be no more

US.