Gone Lawn
a journal of literature
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Gone Lawn 6
Winter, 2011

Featured painting, ©2004 by Chris Mars : Parasites of Necessity.

Editorial
by Alana I Capria, guest editor for Gone Lawn 6

Featured Excerpt

New Works


William Keckler

Dear Stalkee


DEAR STALKEE,

i have been in the places where you sleep. i know what your breath smells like the moment after you have left the bathroom. i have been in your dwelling moments after you have left it. your breath. it smells like pine needles where horses have slept in the night. i lingered over your prescription medicines. i had no idea you were so sick but i love you all the more. i switched some of the pills that look like each other. i wonder what that will do to your body. i turned on the t.v. to see what you had been watching. i cried when i realized you had no pets. i made breakfast and slept in your bed while you were at work. i traced some of your writing with your pen. i turned on your computer and i wrote something to you in the dust on the screen. i worry that you are dying. i google your name. i found the photograph behind the other photograph in the frame. who is that? your mother or a lover? i killed a fly and put it in the breast pocket of one of your shirts. it was a shirt that upset me because it looked like you wore it on another continent. why would you go to another continent. i only stole toys when i left. i wondered how good you were at figuring out what's missing in a room. like Find Waldo. except it's a felony. or is it a misdemeanor. ask google. do you laugh at the bing commercials. i hate them because they make fun of robots. lots of very nice people are robots. do you watch lifetime television for women? i think you are nice, soft and metrosexual. i think you would make a pretty girl. why don't you have pets. i didn't really cry. i lie a lot. later i went to big lots and told a stranger all about you. he got real concerned for you when i told him about all your terrific problems. he even offered to give me a ride but i think he might have been a serial killer. so i went home and thought some more about you. i wanted to leave an egg in a bowl but i didn't. because i know you do that sometimes and i knew it would fuck with your head. i did turn all the eggs upside down though. in your fridge. it felt right. it all feels right.


William Keckler is the author of Sanskrit of the Body (Penguin).