I’m so needy, I’d eat spam

Hadn't gotten an e-mail from you in, I don't know, in how many days? Thought you'd found out I'm a fraud, unworthy of your attention, that you'd deleted me from your contact list, then I thought—over grapenuts and fresh mountain peaches with cream, crunching, swallowing—that maybe you're in my spam.

In the eerie blue-green glow of my computer screen, in wonder, before morning raised its sleepy head, I adjusted my bifocals, pressed the keys. You were there, you are there. Found your latest e-mail, tasted it, gobbled it up.

You said at one point you thought you loved K. Said she needed pictures to justify her indiscretions. Her ex-lover framed you together, digitally. Sex is strange, you said. Sex makes you vulnerable. I sipped coffee, black, stared, blank.

To have sex with a woman is to conquer her, you tell me. You said you passed her around in stories you told friends, like toast and jam, I thought, took a bite. You talked about her to the boy with a knife and a cat face, spread her like butter on his imagination.

Now I know where to find you. Splenda, spam, swallow, delete.

Inspired by an e-mail from Stephen Elliott, author of the new book The Adderall Diaries, http://www.therumpus.net/

The Adderall Diaries is now available as an app for iPhone and iPad. The app is different from the kindle or iBook version, both just released.