grave letters ✓

02

my dearest bettie with your prodigal minaudières and good old american sadness, your serpent stilettos, and cherry wine-stained cheekbones- seems you were just another ordinary size zero mannequin on page 32 of playboy magazines and beseeching souls under 40-something-year-old men with crying wives forsaken in vacant mansions.

this town that we loathed so badly with their damned gravels forged in young blood and tattered bibles pulled to their scrupulous hearts- they had always rooted for you and archie. oh, dashing young archie with his sweat-soaked tank tops and evening shifts at the gas station on 25th avenue.

but you, bettie- with your feigned blonde curls and lilac ribs- you'd never fancy poor archie with his disheveled chestnut locks and darling manners. cinders in your fascia throat and glitter veins upon your cocoa butter thighs- you fancied isabella with her charcoal dipped converse highs and citrus juice spilled jumpers.

if only your prada fabrics and vanilla-scented skin would give you a fair rush of adrenaline so you could wail from the rooftop of your late mama's abandoned home- at their unkind faces and this hell-bound town- your dianthus love for little isabella and the first time you kissed her lemonade lips under pretty traffic lights and how the neon aftertaste of city nights had caressed your hammering neck whispering that your pretty pink heart had for the first time smiled inside your hollow body.

my beautiful bettie with that lionheart i had the pleasure of loving- i place milk-stained tulips upon your grave with dirt underneath my nails- i always thought you were the prettiest with no make-up on.