6.04 / April 2011

Dear Exclamation Point

Dear Exclamation Point,

It’s hard to listen to you talk. You sound so unsure of everything you say. It’s like every word you speak is you begging for approval.

Do you feel so beneath everyone? Is that why you so badly (and obviously) want them to think you’re smart?

We would have probably been better friends if my mother hadn’t caught you with your hand in my pants. The way she screamed ABNORMAL and CORRUPT probably kept us apart all this time. Even if she had said it was okay for you to come over and play, I didn’t want to anymore.

I’m sorry, but it even makes me a little uncomfortable to see other people using you. I don’t like the idea of your hand in someone else’s pants.

Sometimes I think about the way your hand was in my pants, but that reminds me of the way my mother screamed. So I hope you understand why I avoid you so.

Sincerely,

Brandi


Brandi Wells is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama and has fiction in McSweeney’s, Hobart, Monkey Bicycle, and Dzanc’s Best of Web. She blogs at http://brandiwells.blogspot.com/