Letter to Yang Chu

by Russell Streur

Dear Yang Chu:

Home tonight for me is Bear Dancer on the blue ridge.  You know the place.  I am with the certain Miss Southern Ocean so you are out of luck and definitely not invited.

Sorry but this is something special and that’s the truth.

And I hope your crowd isn’t still arguing whether any this can equal any that or whether only this can equal only that.

You deep thinkers need to drink more.

Or take up poetry:  except to the Muse, we’re not accountable for anything we say at all.  The government ought to start charging for the license.

Don’t tell them I said so.

And don’t tell High Hat either.

Seriously—don’t even think about dropping in by accident.  I’d have to call the authorities and the sheriff up here has absolutely no sense of humor as in none and zero.  He’d arrest you for breathing if he could and for not breathing if he couldn’t.

Especially you.

Speaking of the law, I ran into our friend Robber the other day.  He’s as handsome as ever and must be nine feet tall.  He just keeps growing.  All the Peach Blossom girls are crazy for him and a lot of them are tired in the morning. 

I want to know what he eats for dinner but he still won’t tell anyone.  Go figure.  

While we’re on the menu, Robber is still furious that he didn’t eat High Hat’s liver for lunch last month after that old charlatan tried to sweet talk him out of the criminal life. 

Personally I think Robber would’ve died of food poisoning after the first bite.

Anyway, Robber sends his best to you and offers up the latest version of his five rules:

Plan carefully

Steal only what’s worth stealing

Be the first to take it

Be the last to keep it

Share the loot equally.

Incidentally, the Three No’s of the certain Miss Southern Ocean are not what you think.  And there’s actually four.  (One of her ancestors must have been a fox; she has a very sly sense of humor if you haven’t noticed yet.)  But I am sworn to secrecy on the No’s so do not ask.

And since we’re on the ways of life, I have something to say about your chapter on how a man can not spend all his time in a fine bed, listening to lovely music and playing with a beautiful woman:  Guess again.

Your pal,

Monkey

PS  You forgot to mention wine.

LETTER FROM GREASY GRASS
by Russell Streur

June 22, 1876

Dear General Custer:

The banks along the Little Big Horn are beautiful this time of year. 

I am happy to hear you plan to visit soon.

Chief Gall and I would like to invite you to breakfast.

How does the morning of June 25th sound to you?

By the way—

Rain In The Face says he would much enjoy a heart to heart  

with your brother Tom.

Crazy Horse says he will come too.

But you know him.

He is always late.

Because his horse is always off somewhere

Acting crazy.

I laugh so hard I could die.

So could you.

With Best Regards,

Sitting Bull

PS: 

Bring your friends along. 

All of them.

Russell Streur was hit on the head by an insistent muse from Crete in 2004 and hasn't been right since.  He is proudest this week of getting through it without a cigarette, but he is tempted for sure right now.  Luckily, there's vodka in the freezer. 
 

My Mojo Rises While Watching National Geographic

 by Dawn West

 I’m drinking beer and watching a woman split her tongue on TV. She is a modified person, a subversion of trends with her fake tits and designer scars; her brilliantly pale shaved head and bouquet of tattoos. Her eyelids wiggle and the two muscles in her tongue swim like lovers, blood blurring onto her lips. I lay my cheek against your stomach in bed and consider piercing my nipple with a needle, leaving a silver hoop behind. I think about the false eyelashes I wore when I was fifteen. I think about how I lifted up my skirt for a boy that night, batting those lashes with self-filleting efficiency. I watch a woman split her tongue on TV and my shock is becoming distant with the growing weight of my lust for her. I want to shove my face against her silicone chest and listen to the whistles and clanks of her heart. Her tongue looks like shaved pussy lips and I want to rub my clit with the blood-stained ice in her hand.

Dawn West (b. 1987) is a nice young lady and a cheap date. She finds it sad that she's never masturbated anywhere strange. Her work has appeared most recently in Postcard Shorts and is forthcoming in Necessary Fiction.

Love Letter

 by Yohann Teyssier-Verger/Contributed by Chloe Caldwell

you are so exciting

wake up

and go outside

to smoke


Yohann tv is a photographer in Lyon France, you can see his photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yohanntv/

Love Letter: A Messy End

 by Julia Davies

I don't know her name.  Filtered through you I have random snippets of information about her, I know she has three kidneys and is several years younger than I am, I know where her parents live, that her sister has twins that went to the psychologist almost before they went to school.  I know that it is one year since she had to have her wisdom teeth out in hospital, because it shattered our plans to meet, paint the town red and fall into bed; this year, this weekend you go to the hotel with her instead.  I know she is six foot tall, a better match for you there than I am, although it was someone else that told me this, explaining the day after the birth why your newborn girl was such a "long" baby.  You told me that she never gives you blow-jobs, after her first attempt at it many years ago went wrong; now a wicked joke between us that you could be a spit, swallow or snort type of girl.  You told me so, but of all the things you told me I wonder if this last is true, or why would you be with her and not me?


Yesterday you said "Catch you tomorrow?"  Words that should be hopeful, speaking of continuity, speaking of the future; the wish to be talking again then as we were today.  But, but... they are so final for today; from experience I experience them as a turning off, being shelved, put away until it is convenient for you again.

Today you will not say even "Catch you tomorrow," but only that it is best we don't talk.  My heedless optimism in complaining about being switched off for a short time has been well and truly slapped down.  The trust that we can talk through things was broken, apparently by one flippant comment followed by a one word answer.  And even as I typed "whatever" I hated that I said it, such a cliché and now it will be accompanied by the sonorous knell of a relationship falling apart at long last.  This time you say we should not reply to each other, and that time will heal the pain, but you don't know how tightly I can cling onto it.  You says you hope things will go well for me, and that you mean that. But if you have no intention of talking to me again you will never know how things are with me. You mean that you hope I will leave you alone.

It is as if my lips have been sewn together, each time I want to communicate with you I am pulling on the stitches, the muscles around my mouth twitch now in anticipation of the tearing pain; if I carry on I will have short stubby whiskers as the knots come loose.  I can't ask even "how are you?" because my words are so potent, we are so poised over the precipice that to even make polite conversation will start us off on that luge-track again.  I would prefer my words to be a gently bubbling warm jacuzzi, something you would feel both exciting and comfortable; but it seems I am instead a black run, exhilarating but fraught with the danger of crashing out, and in any case there is a sharply defined end.  I would like to be a spicy Merlot, full bodied and tangy, to be anticipated and savoured each time the bottle is broached, there is a ceremony to it's opening.  But it seems I must be a cheap blended whisky, my taste is harsh but acquired, as the patina of adulthood is acquired and sometimes I was just what you needed to get pissed, to blot out any sorrows and be gladly uplifted by the glamorous falseness of "having fun" and I wonder how you are drowning your sorrows now?  And perhaps it is better that my mouth is forcibly closed, who knows what I would pour into it, and then what would pour out?


Julia Davies is a practised reader and practising writer & lives in Germany & this week she is most proud of is getting a stranger ~4500 miles away so excited he had to leave his desk and go to the mens room for some relief...

Fictional Love Letter

by Misti Rainwater-Lites

Dear John,
This is candid tape recorder Nova, the Nova I'm not ready to share with you yet since we only had sex one time and you left the next morning without so much as a hastily scrawled "thanks for the great fuck" note with your phone number underneath it. I can't send you this letter since I have no idea where you live but I wouldn't send it, anyway, because this letter is me at my most uncool and unsexy. This letter has morning breath, menstrual cramps from hell and Richard Simmons hairdo.

I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have fucked you five minutes after meeting you. You are only the third man I've ever had sex with. I was date raped by my first cousin Nigel in Las Vegas. Then I had an ill-fated fling with a heroin dealer named Poe. You are obviously the best sexual experience of my life. I fell in love with you when I looked into your eyes at Perry's party. Did you see me shiver? When you blew marijuana smoke into my mouth, that was it. Game over. I was gone. Over the rainbow. You knew I was your fool. You knew my wet pussy was yours for the taking. Fucker. If I ever see you again I'm going to fuck your brains out. I'm going to shove my Buzzy Bumblebee vibrator up your ass. I'm going to beat you up! I'll leave you moaning for mama in a puddle of blood. I will walk away laughing.

Love & Warm Fuzzy Kisses,
Nova

Nova and John are characters from Misti's first self-published novel, Nova's Gone Potty. Buy Nova's Gone Potty at amazon.com or lulu.com. Misti is proud of herself for not overdosing on Cascara Sagrada.

Dirty Laundry

by Dina Mutar

My Love,
I miss you, now that you are so far away. You always used to make me feel exactly the way a real woman should feel in the presence of a real man. You made me want to spread my legs wide open. The connection we had was ancestral, from the time of the Pharaohs and your reign. Without me, you never would have kept your position at the top. I was your favorite to fuck and I still am, thousands of years later. I loved the way you would mark me, because I was yours, we were together through infinity, and every one bore witness to it. Our love, My Love, was a love that transcended the vortex of time and space. I remember how we used to sleep on top of the "Castel" out on the ledge over looking the Atlantic- it was our "special spot" even though plenty of squatters used it for sleeping too. When the sun was high, the stench of boiling piss lingered... we were worlds away from mine.


How I miss "our house," the tent. The humid, stagnant, moldy, love that enveloped us and protected us and kept us warm like the red, glow of the sun coming through the trees. I can still hear the waves rolling up to shore, the chickadees, the call to prayer and children playing. You were romantic in everything that you did. You fed me with your hands, brushed my hair, and looked at my with hungry eyes. I felt like a princess when you would sneak me into the mosque between prayer sessions. You would climb over the wall so you could open the door from the inside. You would stand outside and guard the door so could take a shower or take a shit. Back in those days we were still in love and you would do anything for me, we were obsessed with each other. We didn't even know each other very well when you blurted out that you wanted me to be the mother of your children when we were having loud sex again. And now that I am (the mother of your child), you don't see me anymore, not with the same hungry eyes. You don't grope and grab at me with your desperate hands.


I miss how you would run errands to the boutique; to buy our breakfast and coffee for the morning, cigarettes and mints for later, rolling papers, and laundry detergent; the essentials. I couldn't stand your absence even for a few minutes. You were content to do anything for me, in fact, you didn't let me do things because it was so hot and there was lots of sand, you wanted to keep me safe. You were paranoid that others that might try to take me from you. Oh my God and how we used to make love in the mornings. We used to smoke joints and devour each other in a combustion of ecstasy. It didn't feel dirty, it felt holy. I said I would have you for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with hot sauce on the side. I wanted you to live inside of me. I wanted to walk around with your dick inside me forever. Later, we would take "bucket showers", smoke more joints, make passionate love to one another, drink juice and sleep. Finally we would need sustenance and we'd have to stop and search out food. These were the simple pleasures of our existence.


We sang hymns to Allah praising His greatness. We sat on our roof and watched airplanes over head while listening to our crappy, Chinese radio mumble news of worldwide wars. I knew it was fucked up out there, and even though I was worried about the state of things... I felt so sure of us. I thought we were perfection, a model of divinity... I thought our love was glorious and pure. I thought it was too good to be true. So many times I had thanked God for this blessing, finally, I thought I had gotten what I had been searching for, and I believed that I deserved it this time. I had hoped that maybe I was receiving my karmic retribution for all the other assholes I had loved and tried to help but that always screwed me over in the end. I thought we were the luckiest people to have ever walked this Earth.


My Love, I don't call you "My Love" anymore. We don't wash our clothes by hand and hang them out to dry anymore. We don't ride the ferry to that island off the coast, we don't sit under the baobab and eat fish and rice with our hands, we don't talk about God anymore. I miss you, now that you are so near to me... I can't stand who you've become. Now, it's all about the rat race: tits and ass, money, money, money... institutionalized slavery, mental slavery, physical annihilation... I can't take the beatings that leave us scarred and bruised, and scared. My puffy eyes are sore, my soul is a weight too heavy for my body to encapsulate, my voice is tired of talking in circles with you, trying to be one step ahead of you. I have given you my hand too many times. My Love, you were my Lion King, you were everything I thought was good and right. I wanted to learn how to cook for you. I wanted to impress you with my finesse and beauty in everything I did. I believed you were a modern day prophet, I believed that you were a disciple of Truth. I believed that you loved me and that you wanted me. I became lost in you and the false Paradise we created. My Love, I hate you. I hate what you've put me through. I hate that you tricked me, I hate that you've wasted my time. I hate you for pretending to love me because you were heartbroken and it was convenient. The truth is you're just a pretty, pathological, ghetto child with stars in his eyes and I'm too good for you. So please go back to where you came from, we are going to kill each other here, slowly suffocating each others' life force until we shrivel into darkness. I hate you for making me love you.

-Me

Dina Mutar is a world traveler and pacifist except for when she passes her fist into your jaw or shoulder or chest, never the nose, however. She is from here and there, she is an emotional psychic and loves kids. She is proud that she finally got the balls to finish and submit a piece, even if it's a piece of work.

News To My Muse

 
Here is a response of sorts to the news from you my muse. No editing. This is straight from the vomitous chomp of the horse’s mout.

Mouth. That’s right. If I don’t finish a word I start it again on the next line. Sometimes. I’ve finally come to terms with my typewriter and it’s retarded brother the space bar. 

Let it skip. I think it looks cool on the paper. Like the little bumps on a music box cylinder.

My right hand is killing me all full of scrapes and scratches from a tequila bottle in my kitchen that gave me trouble earlier this evening when I was preparing to sit down and type this missive to you, Chloe, easily the most, the closest woman to who I wish I were myself. To you Chloe, the closest woman to the who I wish I were.

It may not read as romantic but I think it’s more fuck these words I keep tripping over them like logs in the woods at night. Like logs and I’m running through the woods at night.  I know you don’t like my raw stuff so I am thinking too much. That’s why I’ve chosen the typewriter to write to you. I do love you and I want to give you the dirtiest most humiliating brain paralyzed retard truth of my soul and who I am before you when you’re not looking at me through the filter of your mind or your heart or your eyes.

I’m sorry that I don’t always have the fortitude to follow the ultimate truth. It’s new to me and I’m still learning it. We’ve both agreed in the past that that you have a way of dramatizing people, affording them qualities that they may or may not have and may or may not recognize. You’ve come across me at a time in my life where I’ve just started to catch the slimmest glimpse of what I thought the truth was. But you also caught me at a place in the woods where I was coming to grips with the fact that according to my new paradigm about the truth and life and what the fuck was going on here, well according to all that shit, all the years of my life leading up to 11^th street some, or maybe my addiction and overdose but all that time those 26 plus years were wrong.

Like I was driving down the highway in a car nearly out of gas while the pressure of piss is pushing pain in my bladder stinging the inner tip of my dick. Only to realize I had been driving in the wrong direction for the last hour and a half and that I’d have to turn around and drive back not only the hour and a half I’d gone in the wrong direction, but an additional hour in a completely different direction, before I would have the chance to relieve myself.

I’m obsessed with myself not because I’m narcissistic, though I’m not denying that I maybe have those tendencies.

I seem obsessed with myself.

I’m preoccupied with the fact that I used to be happy and for the last couple of years I haven’t been, not really, and I want to know why. I claw and I dig and I pay some old miner in Croton to help me. I’m sorry for looking inward so often. But again, it is in this season that you came across me. Came upon me.

You’re ahead of me in appreciating books and remembering authors and recommending them to friends. I didn’t used to be into books enough to remember the authors or want to share them with my friends. I read nearly nothing but Stephen King until I was in my early twenties. And I don’t give you books because I don’t give anyone books. I’m too anal for that and you know it. It has nothing to do with your importance to me. You got into Bukowski on my recommendation. But fuck it.

I was, I felt, more myself with you than ever or anyone before. My true, inspired, wandering, lustful and passionate self. And the only reason I felt any of this truth about myself was because of my utter admiration of you. You were like a celebrity to me. I was intimidated by you. You were larger than life. I felt weak in front of you. I never fucked anyone like I FUCKED (accidental caps lock) you because I never wanted to let you down. I wanted to keep impressing you because you were a source I could trust.

It was as if when you told me that you like my writing it was like Bukowski himself or Hunter S. Thompson

Holy fuck a lady just put her face to my window, the one by the stairs, and screamed “MARY!” and I have my headphones on and I’m typing as hard as I can lost in Chloe land and oh my god and holy shit the char hot lighting bolt that is only now dissipating in my chest. Fuck. That scared the shit out of me.

Anyway, you were like a hero to me, the ideas that came to your mind, the things you wrote about were exactly what I thought writing was about. It was like Bukowski or Hunter or Henry Miller rang my apartment buzzer, came in, got drunk with me, told me they loved my writing and then made me fuck them the best I could.

Don’t you understand Chloe? You’re running around in the parking lot crying over the broken bottles you could have recycled for five cents a piece all the while forgetting that you have a backpack full of money on your back. I know the backpack just seems like an annoying weight but if you take the time to open it up you find it’s true worth.

I don’t know. Doubt. I’m full of it. That’s a weakness but that’s me. It sucks. It’s not that you’re not good enough for me. It’s that nobody is. Not even myself.

Do you see that?

Anna was an amazing girl in her own right. She showed me a lot of things. Taught me a lot of things. But I didn’t cheat on her just for some new young tight pussy though I’d be a bald liar—haha—get it? Bald. I’d be a fucking liar if I said that had nothing to do with it. But what it really was and what kept me at you for so long and to this day and whether you want it or not for as long as I’m able to think my own thoughts was that you made me believe in a truer version of myself. One that I was scared to entertain before I met you. But you made me feel this way and I don’t know any other way to say this though I know I’m repeating myself, you made me feel like a truer me than I had ever been and you gave me the courage to admit that I wasn’t that domestic man living on 11^th street.

Now you seem to want a piece of that domestic man. I don’t know, this isn’t about arguing. This is about me telling and settling with someone dear to me how I really feel about them because I’ve brought you more pain than I expected. More pain that I would ever want to.

I wish I could call and talk to you right now. I love you. I’ve said from the beginning that I don’t want to be your adversary. I don’t think your writing to me, the news from my muse, which you no doubt surely are, wasn't honest and true to the best of your knowledge. Not that anything you said was wrong but I think it’s okay to see things differently.

I’m sorry you found those underwear, not because you found them but because of how that made you feel. The skinny boring girl is interesting to me in her own way, just like Dave Coconut was to you and whoever else you slept with while I knew you. And just like everyone else you slept with before you met me. In my eyes, the way I see it, everyone is truly their own person, their own experience, and no one person can satisfy all of any other one person’s needs.

But it fucks with the ego. It fucked hard with my ego when you told me that you fucked Danny. I believed you and I thought he was way cooler than me. I knew Dave had a better body than mine and a bigger dick. But I try my best not to be a hypocrite. So I tried to see it from your point of view and mine at the same time.

When I had sex with you did I think bad thoughts about Anna? No, I thought good thoughts about you. Anna wasn’t in my mind. But I didn’t think about you when I was with Anna and I didn’t think about you when I was fucking the skinny girl. Sorry, I’m just using that name because you did.

But we all want to be loved and perhaps my love for you confused you into thinking that I must not have any feelings left over for anyone else. I wish it were true but I doubt that’s true for you either no matter that you say you’re a girl and you’re jealous. I’m jealous too, but it is completely unproductive. Chloe is going to do ultimately what Chloe wants and feels. If she didn’t, I would lose respect for her.

But she’s got to let me do the same.

I don’t know. I just feel like I see things differently. None of which is a comfort to you but I don’t know what to do.

As far as books and other contributions go, well, I’m hesitant to say I’m not as smart as you but I kind of feel that way. But my low self-esteem and shitty self-image is a constant adversary so I’ve got to try to believe that our minds just work differently. Which goes back to how important you are. I’m forced to believe that I have something worth saying because this brilliant and exciting girl tells me I’m brilliant and exciting too or at least that’s how she feels by ‘liking’ me. Fuck. I keep going in circles but I just can’t convey the power you have over me. But I don’t think you see it.

You keep telling yourself that we are friends. That’s what you wrote. Well I hope you keep saying it. I love you. I’m your friend Chloe. And if you ever want it again, I will be your sex fantasy robot. But if you meet a man who is a better and improved prototype, then I will still love you and will still be your friend.

I wish I were with you right now hitchhiking in smush nosed European tractor trailers while you interview and puking in the smurf-ass sized toilet of a canal boat while you pounded on the door for your turn to do the same.

I just went back and read some shit. Fucking typewriter is an unfortunate partner to my mind. They both conspire to skip letters and sometimes words. God damn it, I wish I could talk to you. I wish I could have the balls to quit my job and skip out on my lease to be with you on your adventures. I guess I’ll have to have my own. But as usual, yours seem better to me. Maybe now you can compare this with your enlightened typings and see that I’m just a stoner hack lucky to have been kissed by your wonderment.

I’m sorry about how angry I got about your text revealing your knowledge of my secret writings. I’m sorry I was so quick to say we were done, friends or not. Just now I was petting my cat and thinking about how quick I was to decide that she had to die. Even though she was innocent and depended on me and had been with me through so many experiences. Her needs overwhelmed me so I wanted to run. Cut ties. Hide away. I was really just acting defensive when you sent me that text. I didn't...

Why do these feelings of happy lust and longing turn into pain? They don’t for me. But I remember how happy you were at the after-writing-class-bar when I pressed against your leg when we pressed legs and when I squeezed your ass at the jukebox. Why does time introduce pain? Attachment? Why does attachment come along and punch the truth in the face? I’ll be honest; I am forever fascinated with women. Skinny fat medium boring exciting and lame.

News To Muse

Hello Traveling Muse,

Are you still at large? Your internet silence means you have been far from the internet on your adventures. Here's the scan of the typewritten pages I have for you. Sorry if it's a little incoherent. I thought if I got drunk and high it would be a more honest account. Judge for yourself. It kind of ends without an ending but perhaps there'll be a part two. Also, it may seem a little dated as it's been awhile since I wrote it. But if you re-read your original letters it should make sense. Hope you're well.

Dear Julie Christmas

 By Sean H. Doyle

Dear Julie Christmas,

I’m not sure if you get a lot of letters from fans or not, so I hope this doesn’t come off as awkward as it feels like it might. If you just give me a shot here to explain myself, I think this might be okay.

I honestly had no idea that you existed until a couple of years ago. I was on a date with a woman from one of those Internet Dating Sites. We were having dinner in Koreatown, and she asked me what was inside of the gyoza I had ordered [it was pumpkin]. Me being the smartass that I am, I replied with “they’re made out of babies -- that’s why they taste so fucking good.” Her face lit up and she started to bounce up and down in her seat like an amphetamine-fueled cymbal monkey. “Made out of babies! MADE OUT OF BABIES! I used to work with a guy who was in a band called Made Out of Babies -- he was really cool.”

I was very drunk in that moment, but I did ask my date to send me a text message from right there at the table, reminding me to look up Made Out of Babies. Any band that would give themselves such an awesome moniker would probably fall right into my wheelhouse.

I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not knowing about your band at the time. My use of the name was not malicious at all. If anything -- it very well could have been some sort of prescient homage. 

When I got home the next afternoon, I was able to download your first album, Trophy. It only took fifteen seconds for me to hear your voice on the opening cut, “Herculoid.” By the time the song was over -- I hate admitting this so readily, but I cannot lie to you -- I was madly in love with you. I tried to suppress it by smoking a bowl of Brooklyn’s finest cannabinoid offerings, but that only made my love for you grow warmer and squishier with each listen. Your band packed the massive and caustic boom-bap of The Jesus Lizard, coupled with the melodic intentions of bands like Amebix, or even at certain moments -- the counter-melodies of Sonic Youth at their noisiest. Made Out of Babies weren’t just in my wheelhouse, you kooky kids pretty much encompassed the SUM OF ALL THINGS SEAN LOVES ABOUT AGGRESSIVE MUSIC, with the added bonus of having a very intense/beautiful/intimidating woman as the lead vocalist.

So, that’s how it started for me. I don’t know, I figured that maybe if I told you this, everything else will make a little more sense.

Whenever Made Out of Babies were playing locally in Williamsburg, I would debate whether or not it was a good idea for me to come see you guys play. After years of playing in clubs all over the country, and after getting my head kicked in multiple times by thuggish bouncers and overzealous revelers -- the idea of me being in a small room with that many people witnessing a band as aggressive as y’all felt like teasing The Universe to fuck with me some more. I know I missed out on the few times your other band -- the massively under-appreciated Battle of Mice -- played out locally, but that was probably for the best as well. I mean, what with your fucked-up relationship with the guitar player being the inspiration for all of the intense and scary music that band put out. From the internet research I’ve done, it seems like the two of you could have done with some serious couples counseling. I know how that movie ends -- been there, got the restraining order.

Plus, I was pretty sure that if I actually saw you in person, my heart was going to burst inside of my chest.

Julie -- this is serious, now -- you and I have some mutual friends. Well, according to Facebook we do, but that’s not the point -- Brooklyn, at least the part you and I live in, is very small. I’m not telling you this because I am stalking you or anything -- I’m just always on the lookout for you when I am out and about. I thought I saw you coming out of the Penny Licks ice cream place on Bedford one day last summer, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you, as you do not strike me as the type of woman who is into anything vanilla, you know what I mean? I kind of have you figured for the type of woman who digs Rocky Road as much as I do.

We should go get ice cream some time. I think that would be nice.

Late at night, when I am sitting here at this desk writing things that nobody else will ever really read, I think about you from time to time. I think about that blood-curdling 911 call spliced into the end of the song “At The Base Of The Giant’s Throat,” and I wonder if I can ever hold you tight enough to make that pain go limp inside of you. The way you shriek into the phone makes me want to bring you breakfast in bed every day. I know that kind of pain, Julie -- I really do. Not everyone does, but they think they do. It’s not like just anyone can appreciate a woman who titles songs “Cave of Spleen,” or even “Mr. Prison Shanks.” Not to mention the fact that I feel like the lyrics you wrote for “Sleep and Dream” were written about me --

In a tiny little cave
A dog is sleeping on his back
Iron chains around his leg
But he's purring loud enough to snap
I see blood around his snout
A smile that's bigger than his mouth
They come to hurt him every day
To stomp him back into a crouch

Some people just aren’t damaged enough for that to make sense to them, Julie.

I can assure you that I am.

Anyway -- I hope this letter finds you well, and that things are how you would like for them to be. If you ever feel like hanging out in the dog run together, or smoking some cigarettes and drinking some coffee, just shoot me an e-mail. Take care of yourself.

Love,

Sean

PS -- I’m serious about getting ice cream together.


Sean H. Doyle lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is hard at work on a memoir that you probably won't want to read without consulting your therapist first. His writing can be found through a simple Google search of his name, or you can always go check out his site. Sean does his own laundry.

I Will Not Love You Today

 by Isabelle Gray

This is what I tell myself every morning. I say it three times as I wash my face and apply my makeup. I click my heels three times and I say it again. I lean against the kitchen counter and eat a bagel or a bowl of cereal. My blouse, somewhat revealing is neatly folded over a chair at the table. I do not want to get it dirty. I chew carefully. I recently read in a magazine that chewing slowly and chewing several times aids in digestion. When I am done, I will wash any dishes because my mother taught me it’s lazy to leave dishes in a sink in an empty or sleeping house. When I drive to work, I will listen to music. play it loud. My ears will ring. I will tell myself I will not look at my phone. I will not check my e-mail. I will not hope to hear from you. I will not need to hear from you. I will not debase myself. I will not love you today.  

At my desk there is no picture of you. I do not have that right. There is only my computer, a plant you gave me that I don’t care for in the manner it deserves and a cup full of pens and pencils and highlighters. An empty desk helps me think. When you come into work, you will stop by my office and stand in the open doorway. You will smile and I will nod politely and I will pretend I don’t suddenly feel warmer. A few minutes later, you will send me an email. I will see your name and I will feel a sharp burning in my chest. I will hate myself for having this response. I will read the filthy things you write and the sweet things you write. I will feel warmer still. Another message will follow where you are cold and indifferent and remind me about a meeting I am leading later. I will want to respond immediately but I won’t. Instead, I will go to the break room and prepare what will be the first of many cups of coffee. I take mine with cream and sugar. You still haven’t learned this. When I get back to my desk, I will hold the warm mug in my hands, enjoy the steam on my face. I will check how long it has been since I received your e-mail. I will wait another three minutes. I will tell myself I won’t talk to you today. I will ignore you and hope you notice, hope it upsets you, hope you care. When I can’t resist any longer, I will compose a breathless response, my fingers tingling as I tell you all the things I’ve wanted to say since I last saw you at work the day before. I will try to be sexy and smart but not too eager. I will think so long and hard over every word, another twenty minutes will pass. After I send this message, I will go back and re-read it several times trying to imagine how you will respond, hoping I have been sexy and smart and not too eager enough to make you still want me.  I will read through every e-mail exchange we have ever had. I will do this for longer than I am willing to admit. I will not love you today.  

I will try to work while I wait for you to write back, wait for you to call, wait for you to stand in my doorway again. Mid-morning, your wife will stop by. She will hold her head high and walk by my office. She will wear a smart dress and high heels. Not a single hair will be out of place. I always forget how tall she is. I hate the size of her diamond. You will close your office door and I will stare at your nameplate until the letters in your name rearrange into something like motherfucker. I will feel more jealous than I ever have because I am a jealous woman. Anytime I even hear your name out of another woman’s mouth, I feel a quiet rage. I do not like to share. I remind myself I will not love you today. 

There will come a time when most of the office is out at lunch, it’s someone’s birthday or a secretary is getting married or everyone just wants to get outside and you’ll stand in my doorway, your tie loosened, your sleeves rolled up. We do this every day. Only the details and the geography change. You will give me that look and I will press my lips together and I’ll feel excitement and loathing and something else too. I will acknowledge I am weak. I am wretched. I will follow you to your office. You will close the door behind us and lock it. You will close the blinds. You will hold me possessively and bury your face in my hair, inhale deeply. You’ll say, “I love the way your hair smells,” and I will hear, “I love you.” I will pull away and say, “I will not love you today.” You will force your tongue between my lips and kiss me and hold me even tighter and I will ball my hands into tiny fists. I will pound your chest and your shoulders but I will kiss you back. You will push me onto my knees and lean against your office door. I will note the fine cut of your slacks, wool, neatly pressed. They will smell like the city. I will unfasten your belt, Italian leather, bought in London. I will take you into my mouth where you fit (are we not meant to be?) and you will close your eyes, sigh deeply. The sound of that sigh will be so arrogant it will nearly upset me but it will also turn me on. You will hold the back of my head and guide me. I will try to please you. Everything I do is to please you, to make you see me, touch me, feel something for me, need me. I will hate myself even more. When you come, you will thrust roughly. You will hold my mouth exactly where you want it, stay buried inside me, near my throat. I will claw at your shirt, bespoke, and you will laugh. I will sink into the panic of not being able to breathe. The taste of you is always bitter.  

You won’t be done with me. You will walk to your desk chair, your finely cut wool slacks around your ankles. Your wife’s perfume will linger. I will wonder how you fit in her mouth. You will sit, your cock half hard, resting against your left thigh. I will try not to marvel at the prettiness of it. I will stay on the floor, kneeling, breathing hard. I will not cry but I will want to. You will say, “Crawl to me, I’m not done,” and I will think about all my diplomas hanging from my office wall and the meeting I will have in two hours where I will stand at the head of a conference table lined with men who will respect every word I say because I am smart, because I know things, because I am exceptional at what I do. I am only nothing when I am with you. I will roll onto my hands and knees in my expensive designer outfit, a charcoal pencil skirt and tight blouse. I will crawl, my knees aching strangely. I will look at the floor, the diagonal pattern of the carpet. When I reach you, I will kiss your knee, feel the bone beneath my lips. I will rest my head against your thigh and when you hold your hand to the back of my neck, I will feel lighter, I will feel like someone better than I am and then you will take that moment from me as you always do. You’ll slap your thighs and I will stand. I will pull my skirt up around my waist. I will pull my panties to the side. I will remove my blouse, my bra, lay them on your desk because you like to look at my breasts while you fuck me, you’ve made that clear.  

I will hold your cock and lower myself onto you. You will hold my ass in my hands and grunt quietly. I will rest my head along the muscular curve from your neck to your shoulder and close my eyes and I will rock my hips slow as you rise to meet me over and over. You will whisper to me, say terrible things that disgust me, that hold me to this place. I will be so very wet. The office will smell like us. We will drown the stench of your wife’s perfume. It will feel like we are the whole of the world. I will breath in short little gasps, ride you harder, faster, my thighs taut and trembling. As you come, you will say, “You do love me today.” You will sink your teeth into my neck and leave a mark. I will hold you tighter.  

When I return to my office, I will still feel you inside me. I will taste you and smell you. I will be sticky with your sweat and seed. I will not love you today. I will try to work. I will stare at a blinking cursor. I will make phone calls and prepare for the important meeting. From the corner of my eye I will watch my email account. I will wait and wait and when you send me another message, I will read it so fast the words blur together. You will say things that make me feel. They will imply we are more than we are. Your words will tempt me to read between the lines and I will. I will have faith in things that are not real. When I respond, I will say too much. I will detail, intimately, the many ways in which I love you today. My hands will shake as I click send. I am weak. I am wretched to need so much from someone who gives so little to so many.  

Tonight, I will read in bed until my eyes are dry and heavy. The television will be on in the background. Before I fall asleep, I will open the window on the far wall and lie on top of the sheets. I like to feel cold. I will slide my hands over my breasts and my stomach and between my legs. I will stroke myself and think about how you touch me and fuck me and how you lie to me and encourage me to be this way and how I break every promise to myself. I will think about how you are necessary. After I come, I will feel empty and sad. I will confuse that with happiness. I will curl into the space where you will never sleep. I will tell myself I will not love you tomorrow.  

I loved you today.

Isabelle Gray's writing appears in numerous anthologies including Dirty Girls, Bedding Down, Yes Sir and Please Ma'am. She is proud this week of... not much at all.

Maya

An unsent love letter by Eirik Gumeny 

You make my head hurt.  You confound me like no other.

You're pure and good and perfect and gorgeous and the scourge of men everywhere.  You're the best friend I'll ever have and the most shallow, unforgiving bitch since the goddesses of ancient Greece.  

You're unreliable and fiscally irresponsible, you're heartless and stupid and you probably eat babies like nachos.  You hate your family and you despise classic rock; your mom's amazing and I know that you're secretly in love with Tom Petty.  You're dangerously naive and far too forgiving and you always cover your bill and I'm pretty sure you once nursed an injured Pekinese back to health before donating it to an orphanage run by paraplegic nuns.

You're insane in all the right ways.  You're there when I need you but never when I want you.  
 

You're so fucking frustrating, you're utterly astounding.

Eirik Gumeny is the editor of Jersey Devil Press.  He once scaled the Empire State Building, only to be murdered by several bi-planes and a pretty girl. He was not happy about it. He's proud to say he's currently living with another pretty girl, this one significantly better than all the rest.

Mum And Dad Love Letters

 by yt sumner and Chloe Caldwell


Dear Mum,

Hi how are you? 

I hope your feeling better. I miss you probobly more than the girls and Terry. Its funny though, because sometimes I hate it so much here I feel like jumping out of the window and coming home!

And sometimes its just like being on a holiday…..without you of course. When Terry hurts himself or gets told off he says “Muummy” it sounds so cute.

Gromors coming over tomorrow and Ive got a card for her. 

Don’t worry Ive got a present and a card ready for you when you come.

Im running out of things to say. 

Oh yes I met this really cool girl in my section her name is Michelle Vella. You would really like her. Shes got me to love BROS even more than Naomi  (ha ha)  Oh and someone else whos pretty cool Rosie Harris shes a girl in my grade. Michelle is 15 and rosie is 11. I come into her room nearlly all the time. 

Naomi dosnt really like it here. I hate Angela she is so crabby. 

Ive got nothing else to write except we all Love you.

.p.s. hope you get better soon.

  



yt sumner writes fiction these days - and her spelling has slightly improved. You can spellcheck her at http://lambeatswolf.wordpress.com/. This week she's proud of not getting drunk at work.  

Chloe Caldwell is proud of yt for not getting drunk at work, but would be prouder if she had gotten just a little buzz.

Love Letter

Dear Misty Velvety Goddess of eBuLLieNCe:

I'm not romantic. I don't write love letters.
I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT YOU.
You're the whole goddamn package, baby.
You're a Siren. I'm shipwrecked and sunburned
on that island and screaming curses at a galaxy
of unlucky stars. I wish I'd snatched your brilliant
ass up when you were twelve, when you truly
were a small town Texas tabula rasa.
But I love your scrawls. I love the gorgeous
red ink blots that make you who you are.
I am not romantic. I like you a whole helluva
lot as a friend but that's it, baby doll.
This is purely platonic. This is great minds
thinking alike in Sinhalese. This is Skee-Ball.
I am NOT tangled up in blue. Goddamn it.
I DREAMED ABOUT YOU LAST NIGHT.
You showed me everything for free and we
were alone in our closet and the world
was locked out and leaving us the fuck alone
and we were LAUGHING and LOVING
and it was 1970something and the Rolling Stones
were singing "She Smiled Sweetly"
and the kisses were MAGIC, on the fucking MARK,
and every duck was a winner.

Fried Chicken & Mint Juleps,
Skeeter Davis

Misti Rainwater-Lites has several books for sale at amazon.com. In Connubial Blistered you will find full-color photographs of Misti nekkid except for a garland of fake skulls and a shitload of Halloween make-up. Misti is proud of herself for not running away to Fiji this week.

I'd Kill You If I Could

 by C. Martinez

Dear Sir,

I owe you?

Owe you?

Owe?

You think the first time I felt your hands squeezing my ass, and your
soft hair against the inside of my thighs was the first time I had an
orgasm? It’s true you were the first one to bruise my thighs and draw
blood, to watch my teeth cut into my lip in an attempt to dull the
pain of your slamming hips, but my first orgasm came when I was much
younger, still in that stage when a girl clutches herself and bounces
when she can’t find a bathroom. I peed myself with the pleasure of it,
and didn’t give a shit when my uncle spanked me over it.

Signed,

Go Fuck Yourself


My Dear Little Cricket,

What has happened over the last year? I have watched my sharp little
cricket degenerate into a malicious, vindictive, jealous, and sex
obsessed little bee. Your constant threat to destroy my public career
by exposing our personal liaison, which has been something consensual
since day one, is both rash and selfish.

You still have the guarantee of a brilliant future ahead of you if you
can just take in a breath and learn to move on.

You do know what happens to a bee after the first sting?

Signed,

D.


Dear Sir,

I’m your little honeybee, your June bug, and your little cricket. I’m
your little ladybug, your caterpillar in chrysalis. I’m every cute
little bug you can think of. Your point is: I’m an insect. No matter
how cute a bug is you can always step on it, right? By threatening to
point my finger publicly, I’ve threatened to sting you, as you put it,
and do you know what happens to a bee after it stings, you add.

That’s a threat from you I suppose.

Well, I’ve stung before, I’ll sting again. If I’m an insect, I’m a wasp.


Signed,

No Seriously—Fuck Yourself


Dear Cricket,

Your increasingly irrational behavior is both terrifying and childish.
Believe me, I have weighed the consequences of my actions with you in
the past, but I am not going to suddenly become the penitent predator
begging your forgiveness for robbing a girl of innocence she has just
admitted she never had.

Your intelligence coupled with the beauty of your owl-eyed little
face, your precocious antics, and your preternatural comprehension of
all things those of us in our prime have still yet to grasp, were what
bound me to you. Intellectually, I found you raw and dripping with
promise. I have never had so much hope for a young mind as I’ve had
for you.

What has become of my efforts to guide you? You used to be the cooling
waters on my soul, the peace I had always dreamed of attaining.

It’s heart breaking.

Signed,

D.


Dear Sir,

This past year we fucked, almost suffocated under that velvet red
tapestry, and my legs clamped so hard around your waist as I came that
you had to press your hand over my mouth to keep Mr. R from hearing
us.

I dug my teeth into the flesh. You had to inhale hard and asphyxiate
as I drew blood. Your cock went limp and when R left the room, you
dropped me and left me tangled in the fabric.

That was the moment when everything changed for you?

Was it the blood on your hand or seeing me masturbate at your feet
that threw you off?

This idyllic world of intellectual paradise you seem to miss so badly,
of guiding the precious ingénue like a worshipful lamb never existed
as far as I know. You seem to have created an ordo ab chao with eye
balanced shakily on the foundation that was my childhood with you,
while having absolutely no understanding of what it is to deal with
anything further than that.

The first time we fucked was hardly different then the last time. I
pulled your tie. I pulled your belt. You bruised my limbs and my lips.

There was never peace between us. It’s only come to the point where
you need someone presentable by your side and I’ll never be good
enough OR old enough to fit that bill.

So stop fucking kidding yourself.

Signed,

Fuck Yourself Hard


Cricket,

In all truthfulness, I’d kill you if I could.

D.

P.S. The point is: I don’t want to.


Sir,

I’d like to see you try.

C.

P.S.

But, I know you won’t.


Cricket,

I suppose this is as close to love, as we’ll ever get.

D.


Sir,

Not actually killing each other? I can live with that. I’m still
invited to the wedding right?

C.



Cricket,

What the fuck else am I going to do at the reception? Of course you are.

D.

 I was born blue. I refused to eat. I still refuse to eat
sometimes. I prefer tea. I live in a Colorado suburb and prefer to
write about people fucking up. My work has appeared in Short, Fast,
and Deadly, With Painted Words, Six Sentences, 50-1, Lightning Flash
magazine and Technicolor Magazine.

Licking The Stamp To You

by Gretchen Cello

I have a craving.

To know how I learned.
To find your steps.
You.
With ways, I imagine.
Sipping the sunray sound
Of your poetry.
By poetry
I mean… you speak
To me. You are the finest.
I used to think…
I needed.
A prescription.
I discovered.
Your previous absence.
And the shaking.
Turned.
To certainty.
Your coco brown gaze.
Your 3am lips.
And what I needed. Was.
A subscription
To your deliberation.
I have a craving.
 
Gretchen Cello is an ambidextrous dyslexic roaming the globe in search of a creative existence; her favourite past times include making out and breaking New Year’s resolutions. She writes every single day. Such as here.

Between The Lines

by Thinkingtoohard

My shattered cursive only listens when there’s nothing to hold onto.

But lucky me. I have you, today, and all your offending intentions.

You told me once that all we had was time. Plenty. Later, later,

later. The delays that add up to the empty space between breaths.

Perhaps I am someone else’s song. But I used to be the old, dusty road

that led to your stream.

You could get gone. But you won’t. I know this. It’s not me you’re

worried about. The unfairness is what you despise. Too bad. It’s my

universe now. You had your turn last week.

Oh, that hypnotic glow when I’m in the room? The one that takes your

breath? (Yes, I saw that.) I can’t say if it should affect you so.

This is not my emotional storm to weather.

If it’s easier, you can keep trying to be guarded until you have nerve

damage. We can keep on being together alone. Or, I can teach you

things. I can make you burn hotter than an August moon. It’s actually

a hobby of mine, teaching men. I like to put them back together,

rebuild their egos.

“Please, takers, take more.”

The truth is my fate almost always suffers in my own hands. It adds to

my confusion, like that ridiculously adolescent silent treatment so

recently doled out.

Back when I was the Queen of every night, our love was still more

meaningless than the sex in our marriage. Maybe you’ve forgotten.

Anyway, I really only have one question before we proceed: Have I’ve

ever looked so good without you?

Thinkingtoohard is a former kickass journalist. She now kills her

time as a pseudo-wife, snarky girlfriend, mother, and frequent

blogger. This week, she earned a scholarship to the Word Changing

Writers Workshop. Find her stuff at Camroc Press Review, Indie Ink,

Freak Revolution, or at her -

place.

At Sea

 by R.S. Bohn

A black tape. Sticky sentences, these words, these days. I listen again. Tell me what you’re doing in that tiny room. On that tiny ship. In that great big ocean, where I am not and you are alone in a room with a tape recorder and an extra sock.

 

Since you’ve been gone, I drink kahlua and vodka, no milk. I pace in circles, because I hate sitting on that couch. The backs of my thighs are rash-red and sweaty. I found the money in the envelope under the sink. The flowers showed up two days ago. It’s so hot, and I paid way too much for this vcr, and I hate trying to lie on that couch while watching Highlander again. One channel: Arsenio on at eleven. Even then, it’s too hot.

 

I’m going to wear out this tape, I can already tell. I put my pinky finger in and wind it tight – not too tight – and listen again. And have another drink. And pace in circles with a hand between my legs. Until three a.m. This isn’t love, but it sure helps the summer go by faster.

 

When are you coming home?

R.S. Bohn writes love letters with a hand between her legs. This week, she's most proud of planning the death of her parasitic twin, who writes love letters to fictional characters. All good things come to those who masturbate.

Courting

 by Michael Webb

I just learned during an interview on “Fresh Air” that the the singer of Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, wrote letters to his wife while they were courting. It's a dumb word, courting, but it's the best way to describe what it is-the courtship ritual of two people who will eventually become man and wife. It's not dating-dating is something casual, something when you feel the need to chase or be chased on a Saturday night when there's nothing good on.  

I'm sure plenty of marriages have emerged from dating-certainly more, statistically, than from courting. But courting has rules to it, a formality and distance. It brings out a passion that you don't have if you can just call your beloved, or certainly not if you can email or IM or message them on Facebook. If you haven't seen them in three months, and you're not going to see them for months, there's a depth of need there that constant contact doesn't produce.  

Listening to the Armstrong interview, it struck me that people of his age are probably close to the last people who did any serious amount of pen and paper communication with those whom they desired. (He is about 4 months younger than I am.) My wife and I also courted with pen and paper-9 months of letters and phone calls before we ever met in person. I had written to others-I had written letters to girls ever since I could finally write a decent sentence in high school, but my betrothed was the last.  

For somewhat obvious reasons, my wife and I have always been fond of good pens and fine paper and blank books to fill with neuroses, thoughts, wishes, intentions and desires. But similar to the revolutions in electronic music and newspapers, the time advantages in communicating with someone electronically have become so enormous that we stopped using letters long ago.  

Comic Greg Giraldo, in his act, laments the loss of fluency in modern times brought about by the ease of communication-comparing a modern soldier's email home to a florid letter by a Civil War private to the woman he adored back home. There is something to be said for that. If you're loving someone, and you can feel the miles that separate you from them with every pained breath, it creates a boiling anger-a need to get to them, to bring you together, that makes your life into a crusade. This passion used to produce 12 page letters written between classes, to be followed into her mailbox with another 8 the next day. Torrents of words, blizzards of them, descriptive and funny and lame and crazy and full of dreams and wishes and pornographic details, the weight of the envelope showing her the weight on your heart.  

Emails just don't do that. Sorry.  

Michael Webb believes in better living through biochemistry. His writing can be found at innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com. He is proudest of the fact that he chaperoned a trip with 13 8th graders this week and managed not to lose any of them.