From Dolores D, With Love
Dear Artemio,
Do you remember the night you sneaked into my room with your crusty old guitar because you just finished this song you were writing and couldn't wait for me to hear it?
How I long for those nights. Do I ever cross your mind the way you constantly do mine?
Save me, Temyong, for I am utterly, utterly terrified. In seven days I'm about to become somebody's trophy wife and I cannot bear the thought of it. Marriage is necessary, they said, because the world is ending, they said.
But if the world is ending, you'd still be missing and I'd still be longing for the nights when you used to sing to me. I'd rather kneel to God in prayer and flagellate my back in penitence than be wedded to someone out of convenience.
Save me, Temyong, for I swear everyone has gone completely mad. They held me prisoner in this attic lest I be a runaway bride. They made my sisters pronounce Latin prayers every night and I wonder, how do they commune with God in a tongue they don't even understand?
But Temyong, who is Filomena and why were you writing to her? And with an alias R for heaven's sake.
I know, I have long abandoned the right to know but I never loved anyone the way I loved you. And it pains me to hear how they're painting you as both her lover and potential murderer.
I was once your muse too. Call me insane but if you were indeed a killer, then I wish I was the one dying by your hands, if that also meant being called your lover.
Save me, Temyong, for I am your willing prey. I'll stretch my neck with arms wide open, waiting to be devoured, devoting every piece of my flesh and last breath to you.
Grotesquely yours,