Day 809, Sept. 19, 2022

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Lost Letters


Sometimes it is impossible to remember words
someone has written, 
a letter composed, 
a letter found, 
a lost person, 
a series of indelible envelopes, 
stamps licked by tongue, 
flaps folded shut, 
the bundling with brittle rubber bands.

I knew you once well enough that you wrote me a letter, 
and presumably I wrote one back. 

I was prolific with my love, 
with my letters, 
with my envelopes. 

Each letter was a fantasy, 
an entire music video, 
a tattoo on a sensitive part. 

I dare not read too closely, 
lest I remember all that yearning, 
the dreams of a young man. 

Who knew I could be an epistolary dreamer? 
On the underside of stamps, 
it was rumored were blots of acid. 
Letter writers were as possessed as soothsayers, 
chicken bone readers, 
the shaman dancing on the upturned blades of knives. 

I didn’t wish for anyone to get hurt. 
The frenzy of ink and paper is intoxicating, 
even now I can smell its swagger, 
the dizzying sway of stumbling down a flight of stairs. 

To think, a life spelled in stamps.



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