Dear You, First Love

by Carter Maddox

I'm writing this to tell you that last night K asked, "Where'd you get this, babe," about that picture thing you gave me when we were still seeing each other. I looked at it--the frame's a little out of date now--and bumbled on what to say. You know what I'm talking about: the picture thing with the stamps, the great films and great directors theme (mostly Jewish directors, might I add--did you know I have a Hebrew tattoo and every day I wear a ring with Hebrew on it, did you?); those were really your interests then films plays scripts writing being Jewish (?). And now I'm the--oh, god! (do you know how profoundly you've put your foot in my path, my life I love you)--I'm the writer...and so is K. And I think I could love him, and it's more than I loved you, and he scares me every day but I don't want to quit him not yet at all at all, and I understood that he understands me, that he asked about the picture thing because it's so me, that it's my kind of kitsch, that it looks like something I would have picked out for myself at Target on a whim some Saturday a few years ago when that type of picture frame was in style. And so to tell you both I loved you without saying it in those words in particular, I told him, my hand on his hipbones, that the picture thing was a gift.

6S

Carter Maddox's first play, Take!, is premiering in December at Texas State University - San Marcos. He's managing editor for his school's literacy journal Words Work, and his scriptwork has been published in GuyWriters magazine.