From the Walls of Mr. James Odett

Dear ______,

Dear ______,

The treetops kiss the sun’s blushing forehead and they both disappear under the covers. Have you stolen the stars, as well? They seem reluctant to return recently. Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I should have asked how you have been doing. What are you doing? Who are you doing? Why are you doing it? I know you well enough to know where you’re doing it. And I don’t care when you do it.

Please give me back my constellations,
_______

Washroom code 6886
Spray Advisor for ArcGIS
Cold coffee, light lockdown
1 micron = 1cm/sec (depending on airplane, nozzle, wind speed)
Is this boring yet? Good.
I fell walking to work today, can I go do it again?
AgDisp Model
Does it take into account how fast I was walking? Fruitcup in backpack?
There’s someone here from Sioux Ste. Marie
He introduced himself after the USDA Forest Service Program Manager.
Maybe they used this with Agent Orange.
Deposition and drift coefficients will uncover da Vietcong.
Target Specified (Choristoneura fumifera urban warfare)
SUM:177.8275229
Batch options employed
Launch imminent.
Ha! they put the HelpDesk last!
How many digs against Winnipeg will people make?
Yes, har har, we get it.
Not the friendly ghost. oh, my mistake.
» flight log
This adaptation has been brought to you by ESRI Canada.
Presenter from Ottawa 1 second delay.
Roads bad there too. Budget bad too.
(Thanks, Mr. Harper)
But my new kitchen cabinets are amazing.
Orthorectification IR Landsat invasion.
I think you can see me suntanning.
Not yet? Soon then.
Fixed-wing Grumman AgCat B [Schweizer]
Glyphosate Napalm d6/46@168km/hr & 23 psi
Can you hear them yelling? Soon then.
The beauty of application parameter.
+/- 2.17 m aesthetic
in situ biomonitoring assistant looks familiar
97% of target asleep (100% for the guy next to me)
I can see him struggling out of the corner of my eye.
>2 kg/ha phytotoxin (ground troops moving!) deposition
Your time is up 12:02PM Monday, February 9th two thousand and nine, 9th floor 215 Garry Street Winnipeg Manitoba.

Dear ______,

Dear ______,

It’s been awhile since I’ve heard from you. Perhaps watching the post-office for days isn’t the best strategy? Surely you must think I’m smarter than that. (And I’m slightly offended by the insinuation.) As well, you must realize by now that I’m more stubborn than a dead dog. Sources tell me you’re still wearing those ugly glasses. Your face was always much prettier without them, which was why I always took them off before you went down on me.

Unabashedly yours,
_______

Dear ______,

Dear ______,

Today, while eating breakfast, I noticed that a piece of my toast was moving of its own accord. Peaking beneath the crumb I saw a relentless worker ant (Formica spp.) struggling to carry what must feel like a massive boulder on its shoulders. What is a crumb to me, I thought, and I watched the ant tirelessly haul the weight off the table, across the floor, down the steps outside, and fifty yards into the mess of alders, hawthorns, and birch trees until it came to a modestly sized anthill. So this is your home?, I asked the tiny creature as I began to mash it under my boots. Does this remind you of anything?

Unregrettably yours,
_______

Dear ______,

Dear ______,

If I read it correctly I could hear the sneer and grimace as those words were tossed onto the paper. And I wish you could have heard me laugh as I read them!
It’s night as I write this and I’m sitting beside a fire. Your last letter I read aloud to it and we both became alive. You have that effect on a lot of people it seems.
We were like two rivers that had come together before collapsing into a fearfully beautiful waterfall, scouring the rocks beneath, frothing at the mouths. (Is this a hint at where I am?) All rivers lead to the ocean, love.

“Hope the old hole stays young til death”,
_______

Dear ______,

Dear ______,

Your wit was always much quicker than mine, and I loved you all the more because of it. Is it masochistic that I actively sought your insults? “You bark-eating bastard” was a particular favourite of mine. But I’m avoiding your question. Yes, I will be returning someday. I am unsure of when exactly that will be (it depends on many things at the moment), but I will be returning. I assume my place has been stripped of even its floorboards. If it is then you’d have seen what I kept underneath them. Mementos, trinkets, books even. All about you, my dear, all you. Where are your memories? Where are you loves? Where are your floorboards? Perhaps it’s better I don’t know. Perhaps you no longer have them. Worse yet! Perhaps you never had them in the first place!

Someday, someday,
_______

Dear ______,

Dear ________, I did not make that story up. Afterall, it was I who was driving. Not all of us have become so rusted that we must be forever unable to turn our own wheels (or crank, as they say). As for your rather indulgent question of where I am (I doubt you ask this because you wish to see me), all I will say is it is no place I wish to be. There are beetles like you wouldn’t believe! Try putting these ones on your body - the ones beofre were nothing. They have jaws to rival yours! Even though you would not like to see me, I cannot say I feel the same. The moon is out tonight, _________

Dear ______,

Dear ________,

Remember when you threw your shoes out of my truck, yelling Yahtzee everytime we passed a cement loader?
And tied your shoes onto the antenna to dry them because you decided you wanted to experience life as a rainbow trout?
And took off your shirt so that the radio could penetrate your soul that much easier?
And took off your pants so that you matched the clouds in their unobtrusive nakedness?
And how I said you looked like a rabbit, but you said you wanted to be a duck instead?
Remember?

 As always, ________

Dear _______,

Dear _______,

It was a joy to hear from you again.  I did not realize your tongue scrapped so wonderfully across my extra rib that it sounded like a snowplough uncovering a dead, frozen dog.
Very well, I accept your offer, but on one condition.  You know that old beat up cane you were so fond of?  I would like you to hit me over my back with it as I meditate - like those old Tibetan monks we saw on TV that one time while I jerked you off.

Your eternal friend,
__________

A Fable

What’s the greater fashion, The turtle shell urn, or the lucky rabbit’s foot? (I wonder which one died slower…)

Dear _______,

Dear ________,

Honestly, I miss the way you stabbed me in the eye with your red crayons.
They say that the nose is for smelling, but you’d be amazed how well the eyes can sniff.
Red wax pupils.
Highlighted dilates.
It wasn’t so much the oily smear left behind, or the few broken off chunks clogging the tear ducts, or the newly accentuated corneas.
But the feeling of being unable to open them up again, knowing you liked it, and knowing that you knew I liked it, too.

Sincerely,
________

Fortunately, I have these sleeping pills...

I’d go to sleep but the dumb bells clang like hundred pounders, itching for a fight.
I’d frantic escapade derange bulb, but minor inconveniences are like L. Winnipeg.
I’d go to sleep but the surrogate super-organism (the ants or me? - there’s more bacteria-shit than you-shit) but emergent abstractions collect like rain but the devil’s in the retails but quick witted quips strip the grip of upper lips.
Fortunately, I have these sleeping pills.

Re:

blueandbrownbooks:

why is it physically impossible for me to shower in under 10 minutes? i really am asking you.

(up)

horse testical crayon smells strangely of plastic paprika laced with cocaine,
who’s that who wrinkles the panoply of frozen baboon corpses?
i’ve never met an icecube that didn’t melt on a nipple,
the borders cover the lover of potent scrabble pieces,
a slice for you my unfavourable opponent.
mash-up fashion,
quit the bastion,
nickel cadmium,
batteries pass ‘em (up).