Sherry,

Our phone bill was way too high this month, and I know that the new cordless phone is convenient, but I need you to be aware that long-distance calls cost a lot of money, and I don't really want to split the bill this month, it was mostly your calls anyway.

Also it's your turn to buy eggs.

-Justin

To the owners of the Brown Hyundai Accent,

I dropped a notepad that had my deepest thoughts written in it by the wheel well of your car the other days because I thought your car was the car of a cute girl that I only sort of know from a place that I like to get coffee.  I need that notepad back, I actually figured out what car is her car and that she's actually married.

Thanks a bunch,

Barry S.

Dust

Petulant.  That's what she'd called him.  Some sort of dog-like analogy that through a haze of bile and gut-wrenching echoed between his skull and the down-town office of the military recruiters.  From there, passed around, his sallow skin pinched and poked and weight and bones checked and rechecked, there was finality in the Salvation Army.  God-bless the less-fortunate, and with guns after measure 4-0-5b R passed. 

It was discovered that among the donations of older people, entire estates often left arms.  One family, victims of monorail collisions, goddamn monorails, an entire crate of grenades left behind.  And for all the regimentation of the regular-standing Army, the Salvation operated with it's own autonomy.  Victim of circumstance, and lifetimes collection of arms more fitting for a museum.

Dirt.

It's true what they say, and in eight years it had been a pretty rough hall; those boots could probably take a few more miles and the rifling on his gun was sure, sure enough for about, let's say, four more shots at close range.  But the thing about it,  the thing is, is that although Douglas Ancoopers training had worn thin. 

One pair of socks for eight years.  Cost-cutting austerity.  And sure, this wasn't the real military.  The military with exo-suits and top-o-the-line satellite lasers so accurate they could bore-out the medulla-oblongata of a field mouse, if field mice have those.  This was the Salvation Army, and god-dammit, they had a mission. 

If it's

I think the reason I have a hard time with life when things don't go my way, and I get down; It's that I'm a winner. 

One

I read a short story in the New Yorker and later found out from someone who is probably wrong that the author is kind of a dick, but also I read his book before that person said that, and thought it was OK, but I didn't realize that the short story was actually a chapter in the book, which shouldn't have been a surprise, I was an English major and isn't that how authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald did it; I should have seen it coming; it was so obvious, and I thought that the story was actually pretty good, maybe I got a little watery-eyed during some of the novel, and what's stranger is that I'm actually thinking about a different story and a different author:  The short story was called something like "Severe Haircut," and yes I really like those and mine is inspired by Ron Perlman in "The City of Lost Children" and the title f that short story, but everyone always says other dumb things like "greaser" and "Elvis" and "Pony-boy," but that last one I kind of bring on myself, but enough about me, it's good to see you again, want to make-out?

Nathaniel Hopfer wore his shoes like he wore a vest, without a shirt, but those were the demands of this island.  No cotton.  To be fair, the demands were to sit and sweat, and probably, slowly die of starvation, but goddamn it, they needed all of cloth to patch together sails, and they needed leather vests and leather boots in one hundred degree weather like they needed a four-hundred-thirty-eight pound Nathaniel Hopfer on an improvised raft of airplane seat cushions.  They float.  But they didn't float for long.  And Nathaniel Hopfer sat sweating and squinting into the horizon as he saw a party of six young men and women sink before the horizon dropped away. 

The ocean is seventy percent of the planet.  It is often personified as a woman probably, I don't know.  Sometimes it's ruled by a king or something Greek or Roman.  Either way, it's big, and people talk about it.  Imagine all of the things that they could say about the ocean.  That's what they're saying.  It's terrible, I guess, that some people were on it, and then they were in it, and then they were below it.  Terrible.  But that's just some people talking.  They don't really know what they're saying.  Turns out, they are robots, I guess.

Dear Sweeping and Ice-cream,

First, of all, we've met, and yes, I understand that you're an unlikely pair to be receiving this letter.  Perhaps it's inappropriate.  I don't believe you typically cohabitate, but none the less this doesn't concen either of you.  I apologize for the intrusion into your lives, but isn't it nice to get mail? 

Maybe you two should talk, sometimes people with the most differences can be the best friends?  That doesn't seem to hold true here.  You're not people, and honestly I just made that saying up. 

-DMK

Dear Mayfield, Iowa (A place that may or may-not exist,)

We haven't met.  I'm sure it's possible for a young man to fall in love, especially with someone who is a place perhaps.  I don't know much about Iowa.  I could list the few facts I have buried deep inside me.  It sounds cliche, but my a 4th Grade report on Iowa was a disappointing experience.  There's a perception that Iowa doesn't have much to offer, but Mayfield, I have hope.

Your friend in letters,

DMK 

Come out, Come out.

What maybe you don't understand is that, when I wake up, I don't want you to talk to me.  In fact, when I wake up, I don't want anything.  It's called "bear-hands," and if I reach into the refrigerator, I will knock everything over, and I will grumble something not unlike a bear's roar.

Some mornings I wake up to thoughts:  Play Toto, as soon as possible.

When I come out of a migraine it feels like the smell of a pavement after a rainstorm, but you still can't play basketball because everything is all wet, and you aren't very good at basketball anyway.