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dear robert smith,

 

the butterflies have morphed into pterodactyls, huge, reptilian, murderous. closer. closer. no mind. no full. no presence of deep or shallow breath. no nothing except the old fear of my bubblegum schwinn crashing into mr. kaminsky’s grumbling dump truck. i am mindful of what lies ahead. red jellybean filled with ciclosporin. father simone’s eerie bagpipes singing the anthem of “perpetual rejection,” and the burning aftertaste of forever. oh robert, i’m dreaming of rattlers for the first time in years. i step on crackled ground—they spring up. i tiptoe around the gnarled maple—they spring up. i dream blood orange and corrosion. i dream russet and gangrene. i dream of the childhood witch chasing me down a spiral of slippery moss steps. oh robert, i can’t make it to my appointment on the 5th, the 14th, the 23rd, or the 28th because the streaks on my glass-topped coffee table in my living room are blubbering like slapped babies, and my bowl of rice krispies is full of maggots, teeming.

 



 

dear robert smith,

 

i am in serious denial of my constant heartburn. i want to be reincarnated as a bloomin’ onion, a crisp heap of love devoured by a man in beige khakis and his two blond feral kids.

 



 

 

dear robert smith

 

i hold the egg in my hand, cool orb slipped from its nest in the fridge. today my hand behaves. it holds the egg in its warmth and i can feel the drive and pull of my insides. on days like this when i hold the egg steady i am unshaken; the egg obedient and stillborn. but wait until tomorrow, when these squinched fingers awaken to fear. a crack. a taut vertebra broken in two. a hand without an egg. and chaos.

 




 

dear robert smith,

 

my reasons are both stupid and complicated. i hate the word die because it reminds me of the word die, the plural, i mean singular of dice, and i cannot tell you how many times some smartass has corrected my usage of dice. irregular plurals drive me up the fucking wall, but the people who correct your incorrect usage of them are worse and should be tortured, and i’m talking iron maiden kind of torture. so i said cactus instead of cacti, or fungus instead of fungi, or god forbid, curriculum instead of curricula. i would argue that anyone who actually uses the word curricula in ordinary conversation deserves at least one good bitch slap to the face. a bitch slap that leaves a perfect outline of angry fingers. oh, the complicated reason i hate the word die is because it means to stop living, and for past 7 years i have been grappling with a disease i could very well croak from.

 



 

dear robert smith,

 

i’m obsessed with the word slouch. what is it that draws me to slouches?  is it the ch sound?  is it the ouch sound? probably the latter. is it okay to pretend you are a slouch, innocuous and slightly leaning?