abbie

3/27/2010

 
Abbie Birthday,

I am trying so hard to write good letters that my blisters have turned to diamonds.  I am going to get fired for practicing my spacing and kerning on my break instead of smoking like we’re supposed to.

The weather is still bad. All this wind from China or Wal Mart or Beyonce’s latest perfume.  It’s like living inside of a bloody yolk in a garbage can. It’s been making me cough gold dust, which pays for all this postage. The diamonds don’t cut it because of the way they are shaped. I’ve only ever gotten a few pounds of bees out of them.

Did you get the toast I neatly folded into the envelope? Eat when it’s your morning and my night. We’ll make an afternoon of it.

I know this isn’t going to work. But I went ahead and measured the distance between us anyway.  I did it with whales and covered them in cement so the tides don’t mess up my precise measurements.

You’re going to sell my letters back to the post office aren’t you? Or to Lady Foot Locker. They’ll stuff my letters into all the sad Nikes on the clearance rack.

I know what I like. I like speaking French and laying on my back in diner booths. But I feel like no one ever wants to tell me what they like. They just want someone to split the wine with.

I am putting this letter and all the ones you should’ve written in the compost pile. Let them be beets. Let them be half organic beet and half conventional parsnip. That’s probably all they wanted to be in the first place.

The worms will hold them. Worms have a thousand tiny arms and a great sense of humor.

You can’t imagine how ugly I am in person but I know you’ve tried.

Chris Anthemum

Another letter to Alice

3/26/2010

 
A--I told you I am not good at keeping in touch. I have a hard time with the imagination. So it is hard for me to keep in touch because it is so figurative, the keeping and the touching. 

Things here are okay. Everybody is making a fuss about you, which is why I remembered today to write. You are really becoming more tangible. You are becoming so many different people and different things. I haven't seen the movie, but I am sure it will disappoint me. 

I am afraid that connection is vital. It is like how I have always known that looking at veins and tangles and the way fungus grows. Getting a degree in hermitage may be the thing that ruins me. But what I don't understand is how to decide on anything. What makes life force valuable, for example? Why should I value my existence just because I'm stuck in it? I never asked to be. I couldn't have. I am a root in a mass of roots. But now that I know I am a root I can't go on. If I see myself I grow transparent. 


I can hear the singing from the mead hall even here in the cardboard mountains. I am destroying myself. It's not my fault. 


You should come back soon.


G