Dear Troll,

You know who you are. And now, finally, so do I. You got me pretty good a while back before I had any idea what was happening. I posted a poem that had recently been published by a well known and well respected ‘zine and you publically eviscerated it under the guise of what may have been the first of your psycho alter egos. It was all the more hurtful because your entire online pseudonym persona and commentary was bristling with some really heinous anti-semitic undertones and accompanied by a very offensive profile pic of somebody else who had no idea his image was being used as your mask and subject to public ridicule. Since I had no idea of where this was all coming from, my reaction at the time was to disappear into the ethers in confusion and go to other venues where people didn’t stab each other in the back.

I can’t believe you are still running wild and wreaking havoc with your personal campaign to turn what had once been a vibrant, supportive and collegial writing community into a knife fight in a dark room. Your latest hijinks and commentary about stroking genitals that resulted in the exit of one of the finest writers in this forum is absolutely disgusting, disgraceful and just plain sad. Why that person has been asked to leave and you are allowed to stay is beyond me. It’s like something out of Superman’s Bizarro World where everything is the opposite of what it’s supposed to be.

Shame on you, Troll. However, since sociopaths are incapable of feeling shame or remorse or regret or most other emotions that normal, healthy human beings feel, I imagine that statement has little or no meaning to you.

You still have the opportunity to do the honorable thing and leave altogether. Go to some other playground and be a bully. We don’t want that kind of behavior here.

Even more honorable, would be to stop acting like a petulant 12 year old who makes prank phone calls and rings door bells and runs away. Lose all the alter egos, stop acting like a coward, come out of the closet and start posting authentic work of your own under your own name. I used to really like your writing, and I respected you and your work and viewed you as a solid member of this community. Now you behave like someone who kicks puppies and clubs baby seals to death while wearing fur. What happened to you Troll? Someone must have really hurt you somewhere back down the line to make you act this way. I’d like to feel empathy but all I feel is pity.

It’s not too late to turn back and start acting like a grown man, a normal human being, get back to being an artist and somehow rediscover the essential core of your being that makes you a good person. But only you can make that decision.

I wish you well on your journey.

Sincerely,

Michael Gillan Maxwell

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”(attributed to Edmund Burke and others)