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

.echo. 10.15.09..

1/31/2010

 
Echo has red hair and skin so pale you can see her blood vessels dilate as she blushes.

Echo has black hair and sallow skin that grate like scales.

Echo has straight hair and no curves.

Echo has voluptuous hair and sinuous contours.

 

Her mother, who can’t see, complains: 


bejeezus Echy, make up your mind. I don’t give a damn what color your hair is. It’s gonna fall out someday. So’s your skin. It feels tight and supple now, wait til you get to my age. Ever heard of small pox? The Indians? You could pull their skins off like peeling boiled beets. 

Don’t like beets? I don’t care about that either. You’re gonna eat these beets.

If your urine isn’t purple tomorrow you know what’s coming.

It’s good for you. What’s good for you doesn’t have to taste good. You don't know what's good for you.


Love,
Mom

Shirley Temple's Beets

10/2/2009

 
Dear Xena, Warrior Princess, 

my beets spelled out the saddest sonnet today, all 

"the grifter sighs when at the end of day he's won
so many hearts and bills of sale. he's numb."  etc etc in dirt-smelling iambic pentameter.

they always think they are so emo! just because their juice looks like blood. i smeared some on my mouth and looked like a monster.

love, 
Shirley Temple