a short short strange little story. i'm getting practice with these things.

the letter



i didn't give an answer. i only took the keys.

a clank on the dresser.

i started the car.
a crow in the yard.
two hurt hands and a long, undeliverable letter:

it is a timid bell. failing light. gentle windings. a web of smoke. the colors change as the ink runs out. floundering violet.

i steal pens from the library, the dentist's office, the DMV, the neighbor. the letter grows. crawls like rust. it has its own suitcase. it makes piles all over the floor.

i know every one of the little things by heart. the small secret scorns, the shadings, the unexplainable pains that grow and twist, still alive, still writhing. i have memorized the curling. the spikes. the lists. i can still smell your stinking rotten mouth. i can still hear the FUCK FUCK FUCK! the restless stench, the dinner that got forgot, the snarl and the tear, how i bent bent bent and agreed to all i had argued. the orders. the plums i fed the thin beast in winter, expensive, so far out of season and us so poor. i looked under the cushions for dimes and in the pockets of coats that didn't belong to me. i had agreed to all i had argued. i said i love you when i didn't want to. i said it was okay when it wasn't. i said everything will be alright when i knew it wouldn't be. i said it and i washed your hair. i said it and i cried in the shower. i said it with my hand on the knob and all my clothes in garbage bags. i said it
and it sent my ships to the bottom.

sometimes i am lucky.
sometimes i peek out.
i find the scattered nouns. the names i lost, shaken out.
i pin them down. i trace the edges. i put them in the letter.
the safe end of the mattress. the home waters. endless. endless.
and no wolves in the canal.

yesterday, i found an old ink pen under the couch. it is winter again. no plums on the counter. no plum in my hand.

the letter will never be finished.

a wish gone un-given.









i'm not sure if this is done or even what it is. but it's here and calling and it needs some breathing room, some stretching room. i'll figure it out one day. eventually. and i'm so happy to have stopped caring about things like plot or having an obvious point.