Dear Juliet,
I write to you not as a character from a dusty play, but as a voice from a world that still holds your story close—too close, sometimes, to see it clearly. Four hundred years have passed since Shakespeare penned your heartache, yet your name still echoes in courtyards, on postcards, and in the sighs of anyone who has ever loved too much, too soon. They call you “Juliet,” and in that single word, they trap you in a tragedy of haste and mischance. But today, I want to talk to the girl before the poison, the woman beyond the tomb.
I imagine you as you were: fourteen, maybe fifteen, with a heart wide enough to love a boy in a mask at a ball. You were not just “the Capulet’s daughter”—you were a girl who tasted freedom in a stolen kiss, who defied a family’s hatred for a feeling that felt bigger than feuds and titles. Did you know, Juliet, that your courage would become a beacon? Centuries later, girls in love still quote you (“What’s in a name?”), still believe that love could conquer walls, even if those walls are built by prejudice or pride.
But here’s what I wish I could tell you: Your story did not have to end with a dagger. What if, instead of drinking Friar Laurence’s hasty potion, you had run away with Romeo to Mantua? What if you had written to him yourself, not through a nurse’s fumbling whispers, but in a letter—clear, certain, yours? I hold in my hands now a “Letter to Juliet,” not the one you might have written, but the ones people still send to your “wall” in Verona. Thousands of letters, tucked into cracks of an ancient stone house, each a plea, a confession, a hope addressed to you.
There are letters from girls in Tokyo who loved boys their families disapproved of, scribbling, “Juliet, did you ever doubt him?” Notes from old men in Minnesota, mourning wives of fifty years, writing, “Dear Juliet, love doesn’t fade, does it? It just… changes shape.” And letters from teenagers in Verona itself, who laugh at your tragedy but still whisper, “What if we met at a party tonight?” You see, Juliet, you are not just a symbol of lost love. You are a canvas for all love—for its hope, its recklessness, its refusal to die.
I wish you could read these letters. I wish you could know that your name, which once meant “sorrow,” now means “courage.” That your balcony, where Romeo whispered, is now a place where lovers leave roses and promises. That your story, though a tragedy in his pages, is a lifeline in theirs.
So here is my letter to you, Juliet: Thank you. Thank you for loving fiercely, for choosing passion over prudence, even if it cost you everything. Thank you for reminding us that love—real, messy, inconvenient love—is worth the risk. And thank you for leaving a space in Verona, and in our hearts, where we can all write our own “letters to Juliet”—not to a girl who died, but to a girl who taught us how to live.
Yours, in admiration across time,
A Friend Who Believes in Love
P.S. If you ever write back, tell Romeo to wait. Just… wait a little longer.








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