Child, I have, at times, gotten into cars with people I didn’t know – though that night in Italy shouldn’t count. The unreliable trains, the language barrier, the parade of catcalls, muscled forearms proffered by dashing strangers as I walked the road. Child, believe me, I have willingly, gleefully, broken the rules. Stolen from a bodega. Skinny-dipped. But how to explain the difference now? That it’s easier to be reckless when you don’t understand what it means? To take risks when you don’t yet have one? Child, what I mean to say is, you are my risk. Now have fun, take care.
***
Alyson Mosquera Dutemple is a writer from New Jersey with an MFA from Warren Wilson College. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for Best Small Fictions. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pithead Chapel, Atticus Review, The Puritan, Flock, Pigeon Pages, Fiction Writers Review, and elsewhere. She reads fiction for CRAFT and works as an editor on their Editorial Feedback Team. Find her at www.alysondutemple.com and on Twitter @swellspoken.
***
image: Elaine Wang
Rejection Letters 