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The other day I woke up and I had no legs.  True story, you were there.  I wept a little because there go my dreams of being a tight rope walker.  Or a dentist.  Or a prostitute.  Who am I kidding?  Almost every single job involves feet.  You woke up beside me and said, "that sure isn't what I was expecting."  

I ran away from home two weeks later.  I didn't really.  I just wanted to say "I ran away from home," because when I joke about using my nonexistent legs, you laugh again.  You don't laugh anymore, not unless I do things like that or hold knives by my head talking about chopping off my head next.  

We have had a lot of problems.  I'm really sorry about that.  That girl I slept with in Vancouver, when she said she had "weevils," I didn't even think she meant "crabs."  Albert, who grew birds in his huge beard.  Sally-ann, driving through town on her John Deere tractor, meeting me for quickies at the gas station.  I'm really sorry about all of that, I really am.

At first, I blamed you for my missing legs.  I went to a surgeon and when you left the room to get a coffee, I whispered, "she did it.  It was her."  The surgeon said that sometimes this just happens.  You just wake up missing your car keys.  Or your purse.  I said, "but my legs?"  And he had spinach in his teeth and a pig's heart in his chest and a diploma that said, "Jordan Community College," and he said "yes."

I went to the police and tried to get you arrested. Again, very sorry.  I was just really depressed at the time and couldn't afford a wheelchair and it was embarrassing being carried everywhere by Donny, the guy who we only referred to as "Steroid-Guy" from the gym.  I was depressed and I wanted the earth to open up and I wanted to fall in.  The police said, "uhhuhhhhh" quite a few times to me when I tried to explain and then Donny ate their donuts and they made us leave.

"The quickest way," you said, "to overcome despair is to admit all of your secrets."  That annoyed me about you, too.  All the couples counseling and the 'airing of our feelings' and the time the therapist said, "I'll just leave you two alone for awhile," and then left.  I wasn't sure if he wanted us to have sex or masturbate into each others eyes or hold hands and cry on the suede sofa, but I sure as Hell wasn't going to do any of that.  I was paying three hundred dollars an hour for this asshole to tell me how to love you and he leaves us alone.  Fuck that.  I hope his legs disappear.

Once we were in bed and you rolled over and said, "let's make a baby," and I said, "only if we play Baby Roulette: we invite two other chicks in and whoever gets pregnant first, wins."  I used to say things like that to make you cry.  I'm sorry.  

I went to the priest and he told me to write you this letter and say I'm sorry.  So I am.  The priest also said, "Jesus is magnificent and will change your life!" and I replied, "can he give me my legs back?" and then I cooked up a story about Vietnam and a village where I had to shoot all the women and children.  I straightened up in the pew and I shouted, "THEY WERE ORDERS, SERGEANT, ORDERS!  I HAD TO DO IT!!"  Donny was sitting beside me and eating a donut and he did a really good job of keeping a straight face.  I then told the priest that I lost my legs when I fell out of a helicopter.  I had perched myself near the door frame, hanging on, because our helicopter was filled with Vietnamese prostitutes.  I tell the priest, I say, "I might not have any legs, but let me tell you, the sex later, it was worth it."  

But if we're being honest here, we may as well mention how you never vacuumed the rug enough.  I don't like dust, I'm allergic.  And your cat!  I hated your cat.  I thought I was allergic, but it was probably just pure hatred getting lodged in my nose.  

Also, you used to say this to a lot of people: "I never forget a face."  I always wanted to interject: "remember the time when you picked up that cat outside our house and you said, "Mr. Meow-pants!  Get back in the house!"  And then we got in the house and Mr. Meow-pants was sitting underneath the sink and you were holding some miscellaneous dark colored cat and you screamed as if Mr. Meow-pants left that other cat on the porch just to mess with you?"

Regardless, I am really sorry about Nicole Barton's panties in your truck.  It really puts things in perspective.  The priest also asked me if I believed in "karma," and I said, "you unpatriotic bastard!" but really I was thinking maybe he was right.

Now, every morning I wake up and I pat myself everywhere and then I say, "Donny!" and he brings me into the bathroom so I can take a piss.  Then he sits me at the kitchen table and I pat myself everywhere again while drinking my coffee and Donny talks about soy milk and protein.  I pat myself under the armpits and all over the face and up and down my torso.  I can't help but thinking it might happen again.  A butterfly will get shot, or whatever the expression is, in California and I will lose my left pinky finger.  I will fall asleep during Law and Order and wake up without a head.  I will jerk off and it will come off in my hand.  I will wake up on the floor of a city bus, my bones dissolved, a puddle of sentient skin.  Donny would probably kick me a little and I would mumble something squishy sounding and then he would leave.  

My point is, I miss you.  And I'm sorry.  I want us to get back together.  I want to hear you singing in the dark and yell, "shut up!" and I want you to not shut up, just sing louder.  I want you to come over to me while I am sleeping and say, "this is getting what you deserve" and put a pillow over my head and I want to wake up screaming and then start laughing because you are just joking like always.  I want us to go swimming and I want you to put me gently in the water on my back.  I want to say goodbye like that.  Then I want you to turn me over and go home and eat a sandwich and wait for the life insurance to roll in.  I miss you. I'm sorry.  I want you to lean my torso against a tree at the San Diego zoo and then I realize it is the lion's habitat and you're punching me in the face going, "this is getting what you deserve!" until I bleed.

I want you to leave me there and not tell anyone about it and pretend it never happened.  I want you to find Sally-ann and kill her kids because one of them is mine and he has a cleft-palate and he is so ugly to look at.  I want you to forgive me, but I will be satisfied with a trip to a high rise building.  I want you to put me on the ledge at the top and make a joke about Weebles, the popular toy that you could wobble back and forth and it would never completely fall over.  I want you to push me a little.  I want you to push me a lot.

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