Dear Friend,

I am quite sorry I have not written in quite some time. I have missed you terribly. My life here is quite boring, and therefore gives me little inspiration to write anything at all. Every day here is the same. I wake up, I eat, I lounge around, I eat, and then I go back to sleep. Sometimes I try to write. Most of the time Other times I simply cannot come up with anything relevant. They say that exile is the perfect place to plan revenge come up with ideas that you will probably never follow through with. I find that most of my ideas never rarely reach paper.

I finally had a chance to meet my muse. It is a female, which surprised me at first, and the delay in our meeting was due to the fact that she recently gave birth to a son called Frustration. However, I suppose she really is not so bad. She asks a lot of questions about why I made certain choices in my life. Why is it even any of her business? For instance, she wanted to know why I chose to go to a school in Rochester. I was not sure how to answer... Is not the fact that I liked the school good enough? Should there be some better answer? Does that actually mean something significant? What is wrong with that? I do not really understand why she asked such pointless questions and I really, really hate the fact that I do not understand it, but I suppose it is not worth wondering about.

I hope all is well with you. I am happy pleased to hear about your new job as a waiter, but I wish you would come back to me. I am quite sure you are good at serving snobby rich people! that! Nonetheless, I would enjoy appreciate a visit from you, now and again. In fact, I am willing to pay you money to come back. I cannot do this without you. Everyone here seems to be over-involved in his or her own creative writing life. No one talks to me and it is quite lonely boring.

Keep in touch. Or better yet, rescue me from this deserted island. And quit your waiting job and come back to working for me. I need you. I will be thinking of you. A lot.

Love,
Sincerely yours,
Andrea
(The uncreative writer)

P.S. – I am quite sorry for all of the inkblots. It is rather difficult to come across a good pen here on this deserted island.

S E C R E T S

He rises as he does every morning, refreshed and relaxed, ready for the new day, yet empty. The morning routine has become automatic and lifeless, and he often wonders what had happened to his optimism and youthful idealism over the past few years. Without blinking, he stares at his mirrored reflection for a long moment, sad eyes distant and wistful. The flicker of hope in him is slowly burning out.

Her alarm clock could pass as a fire alarm, yet it buzzes for fifteen minutes before she finally forces her fingers to find the switch to turn it off. Muscles aching in a strangely good way, she crawls [over Ralph] towards the edge of the bed, the silk sheets wrapped around her naked body. Bare feet pad against the hardwood floor as she stumbles into the bathroom.

( The moment he steps out of the shower, the warmth of it seems to leave is body. )

I remember a specific moment where I was trapped in my own head. I was laying on my back in a tiny underground apartment with burber carpet and no furnature except a mattress on the floor, when a giant bubble formed in my chest and pushed my organs into my bones, and my bones into my sking, and my skin inflated like a balloon. I thought, I don't want to be here, and how did this happen, and wondered if the little children playing blissfully ignorant in the hallway would hear scream if I could somehow pop that bubble?

I thought, I shouldn't have eaten those carrots.

There was the tiniest glimmer of light under the door and I wanted to reach for it, but of course I couldn't move my arms above my head. I thought, it's 8:47. I thought about my mother, and the snow much be melting by now. I thought about how it felt like an elephant was standing on my chest but even he couldn't pop that bubble.

Of course this happened in only a fraction of a minute, however much it felt like an eternity. And then the most wonderful thing of all happened. The bubble popped, I cried.

And it was over.

Homestead

Our van
Gray with cusions stiffer than soft
Parked beside the rust brick wall
"No parking except Tony's"
Yet Tony's we did not patronize
Waiting with the heat off, gas saved
Sitting on glove-less hands
When would our pizza be done?
Only one light through a translucent window
Empty parking lot where
We joked of how we'd sit on the porch-roof
As the parade passed by
My father, the 'engineer,'
Standing by railroad irons
Where once a train slowed to a halt
And a conductor stopped for his pie
They must have ordered long ago
Thin crust
Too much sauce
One bite and
My cheese hangs from my lips.
The car smells
My soda is freezing
And yet, we come
Every Friday.