[2014]
She stands in front of a mirror each day with the lights glaring off of the glass, fracturing her reality with streaks of silver. Sometimes she thinks she can see through the physical form of her body, and her eyes become the sole feature of her face, the black, unknown universe in her eyes. She touches the cold glass, caressing the shadow of her chin. There are no stars, she realizes too late. They all died out a year ago, a void left in their place, and she fumbles around in the dark now, hoping she’s worth something more than the five dollars it takes to get into a museum.
Because she stands witness to the blemishes on her skin, the harsh rosiness of her cheeks, the way her hair falls too far to one side, her crooked knees, her bony knuckles and her chipped fingernails, imperfections marring the painted statue on the wall. The paint is chipping, she thinks, distantly. The paint is chipping and there is only cheap paper underneath, papier-mâché crumbling at the edges.
Her fingers smear her reflection with neon lipstick at two in the morning, pink streaks of paint crossing into the flamingo hues of her skin, and she presses her hands against the glass so hard it cracks in two places. The face in the mirror is broken into pieces, a new Picasso portrait added to the plain white walls of the only bathroom of the upstairs apartment.
Lonely, she thinks.
And when she pulls her hands away, ink stains the marble countertop.
•••
She swallows butterflies as they emerge from others’ mouths, the tickle in her throat unbearably uncomfortable when their palms press against it, crawling deeper. Their colors depend on the mood of her suitor, black and blue and red and gold pressing against her lips, velvet soft dust brushing across the palate of her tongue. They settle in her chest like paper notes on mirrors, stacking together—around each other, on top of each other, slotted like spoons in a cabinet drawer, spilling over the edges. They cover her insides so thoroughly she can’t see outside of them, delicate rainbows covering glass bones, coloring them opaque shades of gray over time.
Soon it’s no longer contained to her chest alone.
Soon, they filter into her stomach when someone looks at her, making room for more, multiplying exponentially, and she clutches at the confines of her chest, breathing through her nose, hoping that they’ll suffocate, smothered like a dying candle. But they don’t die—they crawl around her stomach, leaching nutrients from her body—parasites—and her fingers shake when she holds herself in the dark.
They ask her questions, the shadows following her with their gray-mush mouths, no longer holding butterfly flowers but instead offering poisoned fruit, maggots writhing in their flesh. They reach out to her, fingers raw and red, flicking their wrist upward, beckoning.
Their hands, she realizes, were never soft.
Their fingers were razors from the start, but she never noticed because they were masked by pure white petals, the creases on their palms littered with false promises. Their nails are actually biting. Their eyes are white and glassy. Their clothes lay torn near their ankles, dragging across the ground. Their faces are dark, not because of the light, but because they are dead-eyed, hollowed out–shells of their own like they want her to be.
Take it, they whisper to her in the dark, wrists moving to the beat of the words, pressed piano keys on low notes, over and over again.
Take it. Take it.
When she reaches out, the poisoned fruit falls forward.
The skin splits and its seeds pour out in a tidal wave.
•••
Her skin becomes brittle when the rain dries, papier-mâché pieces flaking off of the inside of her wrists, and she rubs open sores onto her cardboard knuckles in the lamplight. Her skin is left unsealed, flecks of paint still clinging to old canvas, every drop of water eroding color. Holes appear in the creases of her knees and elbows, and she knows now that weathering the next storm might be next to impossible. It would crash into her, breaking her brittle bones from the force of the wind, carrying away pieces of her she has tried to protect.
But she sees in the distance the billowing clouds.
She sees the graying of the sky and the tumult of the ocean, spreading before her a dark road to endless, unattainable redemption.
So she seeks shelter under the trees, because she has no umbrella.
•••
She only presses her fingers against her sternum when she thinks no one is looking.
The pressure becomes too much to bear, an expanding nuclear explosion, threatening to tear her apart—to disintegrate her entire being. It’s cracking the glass in her chest, and she screams out of the black hole of her mouth, sucking air in and destroying everything around her.
Her broken nails bite at the cracked surface of her skin.
And she rips open the cavity of her chest, shattered skin peeled back, releasing butterflies to the open air, their wings thin and broken, whisking against her sensitive flesh. Pieces of stale paper flit to the ground, powder and dust gathering in the air, suffocating her. The butterflies scatter, blocking her vision of the moon, leaving her in the dark with only the sound of fluttering wings and the beating of her own heart.
She knows now that she’s a goner.
They leave her insides empty—aching—and she tries to put herself back together, sewing up what remains of her chest. Her hands press against her tender breast, feeling for the first time the absence of superfluous movement in addition to her own life force. Only one beat, she tells herself. The only one that matters, she says softly to the night.
The alleviation consumes her, eats her alive.
Suddenly, she’s free.
Sam