3. Dear Sun

Dear Sun,

In London you wore a deep burqa. For so long you hid yourself in voluminous veils that I barely knew you anymore. I missed you. I longed to see your face again and I grew pale.

You tease. You showed me your legs in Bratislava which made me sweat so much that my orange skirt turned white with salt. But then you abandoned me in Suzhou. You wore a titanium spacesuit so thick that I couldn’t see even the blue of your skies.

Oh wicked wench. I who have never flirted with sunbeds, nor fake tan, who have ever been loyal to your pure caress, you swaddled yourself and I turned grey like everyone else in that awful city.

But I survived.

For the first four months in Wellington the wind chased me through the streets and I forgot about you. I faded. You were gone.

When I walked the Hutt River I thought I might run into you. I thought it but didn’t prepare myself, and, of course, one kilometre in there you were. Very alive and very naked. Barely a wisp of ozone separated your celestial body from mine. For hours you poured your lovely love onto me and I bathed in it.

Sun you were the best and surest lover I’d ever had until I started roaming the globe. And now you have followed me here to the bottom of the world and you abuse me.

I am pink all over.

Yours,

Always,

Me.

2. Dear Drunk Destitute Lady

Dear Drunk Destitute Lady,

Today when you got down on your knees and looked under our table for cigarette butts, I looked down at my sandals, which I'd kicked off, to make sure you didn’t take them.

I’m ashamed of that.

What I really wanted to do was push the ashtray closer to you so that you could take of the generous pickings the people before us had left behind, but I didn’t know how to do that without insulting you.

I wonder about you. I called you a lady but I don’t think you are or ever were. You have never had five servings of vegetables a day. You are constantly hunting, hunting for scraps of food, of cigarettes, of alcohol, of a diluted sort of love.

I wonder, lady, never-lady, did you ever use your body as credit? Do you see your scrawny unhealthy frame as an asset?

I wonder how you got here, on your knees, barefoot, an enormous yellow jumper, so drunk or high that you can only walk in a curved line.

A friend of mine said that there aren’t any old junkies, but you look old to me. Your parched skin looks older than I know it is. I wonder, lady, will you get any older. Do you want to get older? Maybe you can’t get any older than you already are.

If I see you again I will push the ashtray towards you. You make my insides so old with sadness.

Lady,
your humble servant,
me.

1. Dear Soap

Dear Soap,
If, when you squirt out green and squishy in my palm, you destroy all the bacteria in my entire body and then replace it with aloe vera and olive oil, can I really expect to be the same person I was before I bathed in the green waters of your fountain?

When you and I have danced together I sniff my hands and discover that my hands smell like the milk of certain vegetables. I must admit that I did not know that vegetables had milk.
Soap, every day at least once I must wipe a congealed glob of green from your spout like you were a three year old child with a constant supply of snot. Both the child’s nose and your childish nose amaze me. Where does it all come from?
The child has a mother with an equally steady supply of tissues concealed in her bosom or purse, but, Soap, when I wipe your spout I use my bare hands. That’s love, that is.
But Soap, I confess, it’s coming to an end. Soon I will have used all I can of you and I will move on. I’m avaricious that way.
I’m not sure I should tell you this. I think, as the classless Americans say, that it lacks class. But I need you to know that I’m moving on to jojoba and honey, a pus-coloured near-relation of yours. I just don’t think green is an appropriate colour for soap.
In the meantime, I remain,
Your affectionate,
Me.