By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 16 October 1999

an open letter to lieutenant carlin

hello, hello my darling ex my favorite poison my friend and lover of four 
hot months in Texas and Oklahoma how is my yummy Taurus man with the Libra 
moon and best friend named Paul and two cats named after characters in a
Shakespeare play do you still smear the lemon lotion I gave you on the 
soles of your feet and in between your toes and do you still carry your
lunch to work in a Bath & Body sack and do you still slay the dragon and
eat soup and drink Sky Lab Fallout's and have you moved into your new
apartment yet and have you found an erotic replacement someone who surfs
your wavelength and smiles a toothy grin?
        your gummy Big Texas hair Water Bearer with the Virgo moon
 and Mercury in Pisces and Mars in Capricorn and Saturn in Gemini
is doing fine writing reviews snapping shots playing the pivotal role
of candid confessor and aggravated aggressor in the same claustrophobic
family psychodrama you secretly abhorred
   my dreams are mostly of you and my heart is stuck like a blob
 of grape jelly in your Peter Pan peanut butter and it pisses me
off that my footprints melted in your snow (all that shivering)
[for naught! for naught!] but know this Buddy Boy-
     I Will Survive!!! [like your favorite disco song]
   and I am alive
       and beautiful
           from the inside out
   yes, I will dance again
           and love again
       I will give and receive
       (I still believe in the Magic)
    and if you don't remember the magic we once shared
          I will remember it all for you
   I will remember the night we danced in the nude
         to Billie Holiday
          by candlelight
     and our first dance 
         to "Tainted Love"
     and our first kiss on the couch in the 
          '80's room
      and sitting on the bench by the lake
             talking as we looked
        at the Austin skyline
     I will remember our first weekend together
          puzzling over the tackiness
              of the Holy City
       trying to make beef stroganoff together
        and failing miserably
     and seeing the space shuttle from the altar
          at Stonehenge II
   I will remember it all for you
         in full
   and at no extra cost
      ...I was Mnemosyne long before I became Anemone
         [after all]