Letter to Mother -- Warning: Disturbing
Category: Writing and Poetry

Letter to Mother appears in Writer's Post Journal, September 2007.  That issue, sadly, would be the magazine's last publication after four years.  I own the story rights, and this story needs a new home.  This is a snippet of the letter:

Mother,
 
It has taken me ten years to write this letter. Excuse the messy blotches and scratches. It's the best I could do, and since you've never written to me, I was in no rush to actually mail this letter. The days are long, but the years pass quickly.
 
Big holidays, like Christmas, mean nothing to me. But once, four years ago, a guard gave me a package of condoms with a green bow attached to it. AIDS is spreading in here, and already several guys have hepatitis. The inmates here mean everything to me. Actually, I don't think I could survive on the outside.
 
Ten years is a long time. I didn't kill that young woman. She was as delicate as those puppies. Remember those puppies, Mother? Why did you force me to drown them?  Even now I can still hear their pitiful cries. They found Annie in my motel room, strangled and tortured. But I didn't do it. Someone else choked the life out of her with a man's tie. I don't wear ties. Did you forget that, Mother?
 
I was drunk that night -- and on drugs too. They say I picked up Annie at Big Bill's Tavern, just down the street from the motel, and brought her back to my room....

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