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The fish nibble

My corpse

I keep it in the dark

Where the rumors can’t grow

Guilt, envy

and greed

All the parts

I abhor.

Sometimes there are sounds

And the blackness

Crawls forth

Perhaps death isn’t

As everlasting

As I was told

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She has wax on her fingers. Milky white cocoons that protect her touch. She likes the barrier, feels soiled when it’s stripped away.

Jeremy slumps on the couch beside her, gaze fixed to the flame of a weeping candle.. His eyes have the glazed look of one bong hit too many. His skin only a little less stained than the sofa beneath him. Alex hopes he has forgotten her. She keeps hers feet close to her body so she won’t have to touch him again. He coughs and she jumps at the sudden bark.

“Pack me another bowl?” she asks, voice floating in the haze of the room.

His brows pinch and he glares at the shrinking pile of green, haphazard on the table.

“You gotta cook dinner.” he says, moving nothing but his lips.

The two stare straight ahead, ponder the contracts signed in convenience, with sweat and spit and easy words.

Alex sighs, sits up, shucks the wax from her fingertips.

“Pork chops?”

“Yup.” He replies, hauling himself slowly forward to fix her another puff.

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The clock, from it’s spot on the wall had dutifully kept count for as long as the girl could remember. Then, without slowing, without warning, it stopped. A great tick, and where the tock should have followed, nothing…

The sound of her breath filled the quiet room. A ragged noise, unlike the former click of the clock. For a moment, she wondered if time itself had stopped. She watched her skin for signs of aging, pictured her grandmother caught mid-cough, forever neither living nor dying. A worm of feeling flipped in her belly. Panic or joy?

From somewhere, beyond the walls, a dog barked. The girl sighed. Time would march on whether she counted or not.

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Emergency.

In large letters. As red as the blood that flowed behind closed doors. An intimidating word, but this was an intimidating place.

The nurse, a soft lipped woman with droopy eyes, surveyed the empty waiting room. Old enough to remember the days when the hospital was always full, she sighed. It was a boring job now. Sometimes, she missed the griping bellies and broken arms.

A door whooshed open. An old man tottered in, glanced warily at the nurse behind her window.

“Is the doctor ready? I’m ready.” He croaked.

She sighed again and waved him through the doors. He hobbled through, a wince wrinkling his brow. Checking her tools, the nurse rose to follow. All these years, and she still hated this part of the job.

The man waited in a small room, eyes trained on the wall, back to the door. If he was scared, he didn’t tremble. The nurse almost wished he would. She longed for the comfort she used to give in the old days of medicine.

She did away with sighs, here. Focus was needed. The Doctor trembled in her hand, but her shot was swift and sure. The cleanup crew would be scrambling. She never had to call them. The bang was enough.

The gun felt warm in her frigid hand. A fine joke nicknaming a weapon “The Doctor”, but you needed humour to work in a modern hospital.

The man hadn’t moved, but she knew her duty. She checked his vitals before returning to her post.

Surveying the empty chairs in the waiting room again, her eye twitched and drooped a little further. She remembered the breakdown of medicine, a slow process, one even now she couldn’t fully explain. Sometimes, she thought of joining the plethora of back alley practitioners, but where there were no cures, a way out was sometimes better medicine.

Her attention paused on the big red letters.

Emergency.

A feeling bigger than a sigh tugged her to feet. She rummaged in a dusty drawer, found a fat black marker.

As much as she pressed her marks couldn’t cover the crimson word. Black on red, she struck out letters, imperfect and shaky.

MERCY

She nodded. Perhaps this, too, was a cure of sorts.

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Mom has her head full, or snootfull as she says. She brays like a goat with “Uncle” Tom clinging close.

She hasn’t made dinner. I stand in the glare of the refrigerator light. I should be in bed. Grade eight is an important year, but I won’t go tomorrow. I bypass cold pizza, sneak a beer, slip it up my shirt. Not that I need to. They are dancing, nuzzling each others necks.

I head outside into dimming orange light, set my beer in the grass, kick my soccer ball, yearning to be a kid for just one more night.

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She rolled butter onto pastry. Layer by layer. Floured sleeves pushed up to pillowy elbows. Face tight.

Fold and chill. Layer again. Rolling pin playing a rough cadence. She knew the steps, the temperatures, when to sprinkle sugar to get a crust.

My homework she waved away. Puffs of flour floating from her red-raw hands. She didn’t know graphs, or boys, or what to do with a dead dog. Croissants were simple, just follow the steps while daughters spread like weeds.

We hadn’t talked in years when she died. She left only a recipe and an apron two-sizes too big

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I hate the boys club.

That joke

And make me feel again like a little girl.

Awkward,

As they poke

Jabs

That land without impunity

Without care.

For the laughs

They say.

Do they know I regress?

Do they see?

I am left with the choice

Expose my soft white underbelly,

Drop my eyes

Coquette

Or lash and maybe gain respect

But probably just another bitch.

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If I could slide my hands down your skin

Would it quiet the monsters

residing in my head?

Would you drink my essence?

Like wine from goblets

On the brink of sour

But still cloying.

I could capture bliss

On your tongue tip

Shocks from your skin

Would you use me?

Then leave me to drown

In my sins?

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Cool water swirled around Lisa’s ankles. She felt alive, remembering Darren. For weeks, she had replayed that final fling. All day swimming, seaweed clinging to fevered bodies. Salt and sweetness by night. At dawn, he vanished, leaving only sickness. Tonight, the water draws her. She feels pain erupt as water envelops.

The horsehair worm is a curious creature. In stillness it appears innocent, lost hair, dropped noodle, but the truth is terrifying. Eggs swallowed in a stream burst forth when returned to water. Usually, carriers are small creatures, but some grow to a startling six feet long. They require a bigger host.

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Hate is a needle

They inject in our veins

Rushes of panics

No hints of refrain

~

Fear is a goad

A whip at our back

Lashes of treason

Snarl and attack

~

We can’t see the sames

So deep in this game

Money lenders are takers

Who gets the blame?

~

Patriotism is a pill

Swallowed with beer

P T Barnum’s great show

Just look over here

~

Apathy is a drug

That lulls us to dream

Asleep at the wheel

Blind to their schemes

~

We can’t see the sames

So deep in this game

Money lenders are takers

Who gets the blame?

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“What’s your insta?” He grinned, passing his phone to me. Dutifully, I searched my profile and hit follow before handing the device back. He winked, vanishing again.

In my purse, my phone glowed happily, displaying a new follower notification. He expected me to follow back, to become available for awkward chats, throwing open a window to my life. I wanted to draw the curtains tight. In the age of empowerment and healing, I was a jellyfish washed ashore. I wonder if he has forgotten. Time induced amnesia. Or maybe he never lived the same reality. I would ignore the notification for now, but why would I willingly give my rapist my social details?

Twenty years has done little to dull the knife edge of memory. Like most 17-year-olds, I was a self identified loser. A long way from the cool crowd. Hovering on the edges, a socially awkward firefly hoping to dart in. I was yet to have a boyfriend, barely kissed, and hardly lived. I dyed my hair strange colors and wore unconventional costumes, hoping to attract notice.

Roger noticed, but not in the hallways or with his ever-growing crowd of friends. He noticed me in seclusion, on an empty road after classes. I first spotted him a couple blocks from school, leaning haphazardly on a fence. The picture of casual indifference in contrast with my own self-conscious walk. I kept my eyes on my toes as I strode past.

“Got a light?”

His voice would melt butter. I gaped momentarily wondering and hoping he was talking to me.

“Uh, yeah,” I stammered, fumbling a pack of smokes out from under a bra strap. My hands shook, extracting the lighter from where it nestled. I felt obvious in my awkwardness, nearly dropping it when he carelessly brushed my hand. His touch an electric shock sending goosebumps rippling along my flesh.

Sparks danced behind his cupped hand. His eyes met mine. He flashed a confident smile. Smoke leaked, swirling into the air through a gap between his front teeth.

“I’m Roger, mind if I walk with you.”

I already knew his name, the color of his eyes, and that he always sat at the back of every classroom. Roger was part of the crowd that could walk right through me, but I was part of the crowd that knew all about him.

I cast surreptitious glances in his direction as we strolled down neighborhood sidewalks. He left me too soon at the end of my driveway, a few cigarettes lighter, but my head floating in the stratosphere. I dug in to my backpack for a pen and scrawled my phone number across the back of his hand when asked. I giggled when he vaguely promised to hang out sometime.

At school he ignored me. We were strangers by day, but I often found him leaning nonchalantly at that fence. I don’t know why, but I didn’t tell my friends about our meetings. It was my secret, sweet under the skin. A more experienced girl may have resented the arrangement, but I was desperate. I suckled at his weak attention, mistaking poison for nourishment.

Weeks passed before the phone rang. I was often home alone those days, my dad working or carousing. It granted me freedom many teenagers would unknowingly envy. Roger was out of smokes, and out of real friends to entertain him. I will never be positive if he invited himself or if I invited him. The only thing that mattered was that he was coming. I felt seen, and that felt good. I primped before he came, slipping on my favorite tee and fiddling with hopeless hair.

When he arrived, we sat on the couch and smoked together, grey wisps wreathing our heads like wizards. We were so close our knees often met, exchanging bursts of information. Willing him to kiss me, I let my fingers brush his arm. He obliged and my insides melted. I had never tasted another being this way. I needed to savor it, replay it a hundred times in my mind and hold it to the light for study. His movements became urgent, and he guided me to lie down. Waves of pleasure tripped across my skin, but it was too fast. I needed solid ground under my feet again.

“Wait,” I mumbled, pushing myself back up.

I felt his hands seize my slender wrists. He forced them over my head, pinning them to the cushion. At 17 a boy is often physically if not mentally a man. I was small under him. A fluttering bird under a hungry cat. My struggles amounted to nothing. A sharp hurt jolted down my arm socket, the bones in my wrist pressed together painfully as he gripped them one-handed.

“Stop, please.” I repeated over and over. I felt a tugging down below, my pants slipping, his mouth hot on my neck. Tears escaped from my eyes and cascaded down my face. They mingled with the sweat on his cheek. I could have bitten him, but I didn’t. This was unknown territory and my fight or flight broken.

Roger thrust against me. I felt a pressure, then a tearing. His breathing was sharp, his eyes and ears pinched shut. Time stopped. There was no telling seconds from minutes. It was over so abruptly I am not sure he finished. He rose quickly, turning his back to me, rearranging his personage and allowing me to do the same.

“I should go.” His voice was indistinct, his countenance embarrassed. I couldn’t answer. I sobbed silently as he walked out the door.

Roger didn’t wait at the fence for me ever again. We became strangers once more, never proceeding beyond acquaintances even when our social groups intertwined. I never told him he hurt me. I withheld some imagined social contract.

Today, I fish the phone from my purse, blocking him from my profile. Not a perfect ending, but one that feels right for me, for now.

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Ebb

Your fingers

Are tides

That strip me

Of sense

Exposed

I writhe and

Dance for your

Feast

~

Flow

I fall

From great heights

Crash on your shores

Spent

A victim of your touch

Enfolded

In your arms

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Inhale —
Invisible walls,
Girdle of bone
Constrict, compact, compress,
A cage,
Crafted from cartilage and blood
Born of my body
Built of my fears

Exhale —
To bottomless places
Endless terrains
Scanning, searching, seeking,
A quest,
For a house with no walls
Home for a soul
Hearth to grow

Inhale —
To shatter the cell
Exhale —
To fly away free.

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I hate the way she laughs. A full-bodied contortion that pitches her forward to display an eyeful of cleavage. Purposefully done, I’m sure. I watch Frank to see if he falls for the bait.

Whap!

His eyes jerk to the pull of her lure. My beer hits the table with a jarring force. They both stare at me quizzically.

Dina arches an eyebrow. She doesn’t even have the courtesy to blush. After six years of friendship, I know her game.

Frank is my new guy, but I really like him. We met online. He was selling a backpack on marketplace. I didn’t need a bag, but I did need those blue eyes and that lopsided grin.

Six whirlwind weeks, and this was our first public foray. I should’ve known better.

…

Later, lying sweaty in our respective puddles, I ask Frank,

“what do you think of Dina?”

He doesn’t look at me when he answers.

“She’s ok.”

I nod to myself. It’s an answer too short, full of sentences unsaid.

My phone dings from the nightstand. A little fire burns in my belly, a worm of worry.

“I can’t go tomorrow, ttyl,” I type without reading her message.

…

The phone dings a lot over the next few weeks. Then it rings. I am too busy to answer. Too in love, to invite problems.

…

On a Sunday, she knocks on the door. My eyes are red and nose snuffly as I tug open the door. Dina stands with her hip thrust to the side. A posture I admired in the past. It annoys me today.

“You’re alive,” she quips.

I want to ask if she has seen Frank, but I won’t.

“What’s up?” I ask, rooted in the doorway.

Dina sighs.

“Listen. I know you have a new guy, but I worry when you just disappear.”

Unless she has better, Dina is a jealous, spiteful thing. I love her, but I can’t do this now.

“ I don’t need to report to you.”

My phone rings and I tell her I have to go. Maybe it’s him.

…

My longest relationship is a year. Frank didn’t last half of that. Nice people always get taken advantage of, I guess.

I peer into the mirror and contemplate a new hair colour. It’s time for a villain era. I scroll my contacts and hit dial on Dina. It rings until it disconnects. I thumb a quick text.

It sits on read.

I frown and wait… and wait.

“Bitch.” I think. I guess she never was a real friend.

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Maybe you love me

The way you smile

At certain parts

Touch certain curves

~

Maybe you love me

Like a dog-eared novel

A comfort meal

On an upset belly

~

Maybe you love me

With cloudy eyes

And little scowls

Half hidden

~

I think that you love me

I watch for the signs

But sometimes I wonder

Do you like me as well?

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Myra stared at her phone. Not watching reels, or scrolling, just staring. Fingers like a talon, black screen reflecting her anxious expression.

Cancer, she was sure. The doctor would call and say sorry, young lady in that mocking tone reserved for almost-old ladies, that gripe in your belly is rot clear through.

She would quit work, finally. Brian would have to take care of himself. Maybe a maid, she would be too sick for housework.

Myra jumped when the phone rang. She listened, nodded, thank-youed and hung up. A tear slid down her cheek. No sickness, back to work tomorrow.

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Broken beads

I thought were pearls

Cut my feet

Bloody heels

~

I want to dance

It cuts so deep

We used to sing

But now we weep

~

I watch my words

Count the sounds

The perfect girl

Inside her bounds

~

The tape comes off

You slap me back

No matter how you try

I fall off track

~

Shards of glass

Strip skin to bone

Frees the ties

I’ll dance alone

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Everything dips. Whoosh, tip, whirl, muffle.

I can feel the paramedics hands. Jab, grab, cold.

They tilt back my head, vapor in my nose. It won’t work this time. They think it’s drugs, but I can’t blame them. We have played this game before. I should carry insulin, or at the very least an alert bracelet. My consciousness blackens as they lift me into the ambulance.

Beeps, voices, astringent smells.

I float in between. The hospital bustles while I fade in and out. I hear voices, my name. I struggle to open my eyes.

“Jason Velstain, blood pressure low… Temperature…”

A skipping record, shutter, jump. I try to piece it together.

“Multiple drug overdoses… yeah narcan.. Blood sugar”

Blood sugar, yes. Hands cold and rough jostle me. I want to tell them I’m awake but the world is too heavy.

“Organ donor..”

“These addicts… others would appreciate..”

“We couldn’t…”

“Happens all the time.”

Wait! I try to move. Did I moan? They don’t seem to listen, and the words I catch can’t be real. I have hallucinated before. Wake up, wake up, move, scream, please.

“Just walk away.”

The lights go out. I hear the whoosh of the door, a breeze on my sweaty, clammy skin. The voices fade.

I can’t move.

Fear, panic, followed by final darkness…

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Dad says I’m too old for a nightlight, but mom packs it anyway. She knows my bi-weekly forays are scary, new sounds, and little sleep. I plug it in after he says goodnight and hide it before he wakes.

Tonight it’s missing. Tears bite my eyes as I unpack. Dad is watching. He’ll call me a baby if he sees. I say nothing.

Tucked in bed, I toss and fret. Fear like bubbles, shame like cement. His steps pause outside my door. For the first time, the hall light comes on and stays on. I fall asleep, safe and warm

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He had bought hot sauce on a whim. He was more of a ketchup man, but the packaging looked so bold. Now it sat in the caddie in the centre of the table, alongside the salt ’n’ pepper, and a yellowing napkin, unopened and untouched.

He flicked through old photos on his phone. His Grade 8 graduation, that fishing trip to Vermont. A hand, hairier than it was in the pictures, scratched his burgeoning belly. His wife clattered pans on the stove, but he barely noticed. The present couldn’t touch him when he ventured into the past.

A goofy grin on his 21st birthday. A snap of Shaun passed out on a too small couch. Shaun was a strict Mormon now. He shook his head. Funny how things changed.

His thumbs flicked across the screen. Parties, weddings, vacations.

He stopped. Susie. The one with the great ass. She liked shots of tequila and leaving bruises. That had been a fun summer. Her head was tilted back in the photo. Mouth wide, teeth gleaming. He remembered that mouth well, taste and sensation. It was just before he met his wife. Maria, stolid and dependable.

He sensed his wife moving close and set his phone down. She smiled, an expression that barely shifted her features. Her sure hands plunked a plate of scrambled eggs before him. He returned a smile, but she didn’t see it. Her attention already turned back to the stove.

The eggs lay limp on the patterned plate. His eyes flicked to the hot sauce.

He picked up a fork, gleaming in the dull kitchen light. It felt heavier this morning, or maybe he was weaker. He cleared his throat, dispelling memories and haunted thoughts.

“Babe, can you the pass the ketchup?”

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