Dear Talia,


My mattress is tattooed with your scent.

You held me as I slept.

You kissed my forehead and told me you love me.

You whispered three syllables into my mouth. You create waves in me that wash away cigarette burns. I would hold you tight in the unforgiving night.

I want to drink cheap coffee with you as you smile between each sip and as I master the art of looking at your smile. I want to make love with you like it's going out of style and until our lungs are burning like California wildfire.

I want to evaporate into your breath.

We were side by side in a bed made for us, and I fell asleep in your arms, listening to the calm of your breathing and the frantic beat of your heart.

Your fingers weaved through my hair, and I counted heartbeats, hoping never to stop.

My brain is soup and my hands are worn down from hours of typing your name. Talia. Talia. Talia Betourney.

I want to rock in and out of your body, as you kiss my lips with precise lightning strikes. After you shock me, time and time again, I want to wonder if the lightning misses the sky.

I am flustered and as I type this, I lose control of my thoughts as I become swept into your green-eyed, dark haired heaven. I cannot dream a better dream than your reality. I want to kiss you for every gasp I've never been around for and for every moment of pain. I am not here to save you, though: I am here just to love you.

Your hands swallowed mine, as I was closest to your body. My eyes drank the darkness, and my mind escaped.

In my sleep, you told me you love me. When I woke up, you told that panther something and I wanted to know what his ears heard that mine didn't.

You wouldn't say, and your hands grew slight tremors, the same way farmers grow slight weeds.

We started to kiss like our lips were the antidote. You whispered into my mouth. I asked what you said, being able to make most of it out.

You said, "Nothing." But, baby, that wasn't nothing. That was everything.

After a few minutes, I told you that I made out most of it and that it was okay.

You turned to your side, and your hands shook. I love you so much. I love you. I love you. I love you. Turn back to me. Look at me. Hey.

"It's okay. It's okay, and it's going to be okay, because I love you, too," I said to you, as I looked into your eyes, seeing myself.

You smiled.

We kissed like famine was non-existent, and like the apocalypse was imminent. End my world with every kiss, revive me with every flick of the tongue. Wash me with lava, and give me acid to drink; nothing could **** me in that moment, except the batting of your eye lashes.


I wrote you this poem and it *****, but it spilled out of my fingers after you left:

In a far and distant galaxy, there is a father for you, and a father for me       
And a silver car for you and I; driving underneath the alone-grey sky.
And a blue soul that learns to be happy.
And our blood will dye the Dead Sea.
And underneath a together-old tree, our young love will try.

And while our muscles are far from weak,
we will kiss until our mouths are dry.
We will kiss for an entire week. We will kiss until we forget how to cry.

Our brains will tell us we’re irresponsible.
Our hands will shake from all the trust.
You chew on my lip like I’m impossible.
You’ll ******* blood; I taste like rust.


How you could be afraid of my not loving you escapes me.

Don't you know why my heart beats so fast?

Today was the first day we said that we love each other. I hope it isn't the last, because I love you very much, and I don't think my mouth can go a day without knowing those words.


Yours,

Josh

She had been planning it for almost a year. Her skin had felt ***** ever since she felt his touch. She screamed no between tears and pleas for help but no one came and no one stopped him.  She went to the police and anyone she could think that could help her after it happened but she was told it was her fault. That she had been asking for it. That she secretly wanted it and enjoyed it and only got help afterwards out of some guilty conscience on her part. That she was drunk and wearing clothing that revealed too much skin. That it was her fault. Her fault. Her fault. Those words echoed daily in her head, tormenting her insides until she no longer recognized the woman she saw in the mirror every morning.

He was free. Out in the world doing as he pleased. Smiling. Partying. Working. Free.

She remembered carefully peeling off her clothes and putting them in a trash bag that night. She got in the shower and lay in a fetus position, drowning her tears and sobs with the water pouring out of the shower head. It was the last time she cried.

For the first few months she went around to the local haunts she knew she had seen him at before but did not run into him or talk to anyone that knew where he was. She did not know what her intentions were but she knew that she had to find him. To confront him. To resolve the way she felt inside. She was about to give up when one day she saw him walk into the gas station as she was filling up the tank in her car. Her body froze. Her mind raced. She topped off the tank, hung up the pump, and jumped into her car. She idled her engine and watched thru her car's windshield the man buying some beer, cigarettes, a bag of chips; laughing at something the cashier said. He looked the same as he did when she met him but his hair was a little longer and he was clean shaven. She remembered feeling the goatee he wore that night as it roughed against her face as he held her down. She cringed. Her face tightened into a grimace.

She put the car in drive and followed him as he walked out of the station and got into his truck. She maintained a couple car lengths behind him, even allowing other cars to get between her and him but she never lost sight of him. She followed him down the highway, thru neighborhoods, sat outside as he stopped off at three different women's houses; picking each woman up and kissing them as they answered the door and pushed it closed behind him. She followed him home and say outside his house even after he had shut off all the lights.

She did this for months. She watched. She followed. She waited. She learned his schedule and she studied his mannerisms and his movements and the way he carried himself differently around every person he came across. She felt herself coming to know him and know his next move before he made it. She made a plan up in her head.

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He couldn't complain about a second of his life. His father was wealthy and he grew up privileged, having the best that money could buy, including paying off anybody anytime he came into trouble with any form of authority. He knew he was good looking and knew how to work his charm to get what he wanted from whomever he wanted. He didn't care about anyone but himself tho he told many women that he cared only for them. He always laughed hysterically inside every time he told this lie and they fell for it. His pleasures came first, that was how he lived and he saw no end to it.

He had been ******* his best friends wife when he was at work, telling her that he was a **** and didn't treat her right and that he was getting *** on the side. He wasn't. He knew this. But convinced her otherwise. But he was getting bored with her and felt like moving on. After he was done with his session; as he called them; he told her that her ***** was loose and tired and that he was done ******* a filthy **** like hers. He threatened to tell her husband everything and make her come off as some ***** if she said anything. Claimed that he was just a man taken advantage by a ****. She cried and screamed and threw plates at him and told him to leave and told him to ******* as she collapsed into a mess on the kitchen floor. He smiled and laughed as he walked out of the house, nearly skipping joyfully to his pick-up.

He slid into the drivers seat and pulled out a cigarette from the pack he kept in the glovebox. He lit it and inhaled. He looked into the rear view mirror and saw a pair of icy blue eyes that he had the vague recollection of knowing staring at him. It was the last thing he saw before everything went black.

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She hid in the rear cab of the truck and waited for him to see her before hitting him in the head with a hammer. Not hard enough to **** him but hard enough to make him blackout. She climbed into the front seat and pushed him aside and drove to an empty storage unit she had purchased under a false name. She parked the truck and dragged his body out of it and into the shed. She clumsily picked him up and propped him to a chair sitting in the center of the unit. She taped him to the chair with duct tape. First taping his hands together behind the backrest, then around his chest until the roll ran out and she grabbed another and taped both his legs to the front legs of the chair. She placed a piece on his face around his mouth, wishing to herself that he still had his goatee so she could rip it off when she removed the tape.

She splashed water on him to wake him up. His eyes burst open in fear and he struggled and mumbled but could not break free. In front of him she had sat a camera up. It focused on him. It was recording.

She stood in the shadows behind the camera with only her face exposed. She could feel him burning his stare into her and searching his memories for her face. She knew he found it when his eyes widened and tears began to form at the corners. He mumbled something thru the tape. She pulled down a black ski-mask over her face and walked into the cameras frame. She peeled away the tape.

He sobbed he was sorry. That he never meant to do it and that he felt bad about it everyday. He told her he had money and would give it all to her if she'd let him go. He begged. He pleaded. She knelt down and looked him in the eyes and whispered in his ear to confess to the camera and she would let him go. He started to scream. She smacked him hard across the face and put another piece of tape across his mouth.

He rocked about in his chair trying to set himself free but soon realized that he could not free himself. He cried some more and looked at the woman who once again stood behind the camera. He stared at her and into her and finally resigned himself to what she asked for. He nodded his head and she walked out from behind the camera and stripped away the tape.

He confessed to ****** her and six other women. He confessed to touching his niece who was only ten years old inappropriately and denying it to her parents when they confronted him, saying she had an active imagination and they should get her help. He admitted to paying off judges and cops and eyewitnesses anytime he found himself in trouble.

He admitted to many things that made her skin crawl. All she wanted was a confession of his assault against her but he kept going on, rambling thru tears and pleas and more tears. Finally he was quiet. She asked if that was all. He stared at her with glossy eyes and shook his head yes. She looked closely at the man in front of her, disgusted to depths she did not know existed. She walked towards him and replaced the tape on his face. He again attempted to struggle to no avail. She walked out of the storage shed and to his pick-up and grabbed the five gallon bucket of gasoline he kept in the back of the bed. She walked back into the shed and closed the door again.

His eyes widened in terror. She confessed to him that she was going to let him go after he admitted what he did but after hearing everything she had decided that she could not. That it made her sick to think about him walking the streets or even rotting in prison. She couldn't trust any system that kept letting him and people like him off. She poured the gasoline on him, even removing the tape and forcing him to swallow some so that it sat heavy in his stomach. She replace the tape for the last time and looked at him. Looked into him. She felt fear leaving her body. She felt pain leaving her body. She felt an overwhelming sense of peace wash over her and she smiled and laughed for what felt like the first time in her life.

She walked out of the camera frame and turned around. He sat in the middle of the room, tape to a chair and covered in gasoline. The camera was recording. She lit a single match and then a book of matches and threw them towards him. She watched as the flames engulfed him slowly at first and he squirmed in his chair and the flames worked their way up his body quicker and quicker and she could hear his muffled screams and see him struggling but still securely bound to the chair. Everything aflame. The camera still recording.

She pressed stop a few moments after she saw his head fall forward and his body stopped moving. She watched the flames a few more moments eat away at the man that ate away at her. She took the video out of the recorder and put it in a plastic case and sat it outside of the storage shed. She closed the door and walked off into the distance, smiling and enjoying her life and the fresh air.