- imagery
- a few mothers sit outside their buildings, resting in fraying lawn chairs and talking over each other while their children run around, playing.
- a woman in a sky blue shirt comes out and calls my name
- as soon as the door thunks closed and he's turned the locks, one, two, three
- cold, from the grocery store, from the dairy aisle you walked down to pick up the yogurt, from the frozen-food aisle, its cases filled deep with frozen pizzas and ice cream in large round containers.
- even the candy bars, their chocolate gone old, spiderwebbed with gray
- glass of water so cold the sides are frosty, ice cubes clinking inside.
- he drinks beer and orders a pizza and puts me on his lap during the sitcom he hates. i am hungry now, think of food; hot dogs, candy bars, the pizza crusts inside the box on the floor
- i also eat six cookies, long brittle tubes filled with chocolate; one puffy cheesy thing that tastes old, all grease and bitterness; and two mints
- i eat fourteen chocolate-hazelnut candies, round and wrapped in silver foil that crackles when i snap it open.
- i stand up, swallowing the last bit of cookie. flour and sugar, brittle sweet.
- i stop at a convenience store and buy five dollars' worth of hot dogs and candy. two hot dogs, with cheese, and three candy bars, on sale. bright orange stickers below the candy saying special! value!
- my sheets have pictures of cartoon princesses on them, with pink trim and a matching pink comforter
- one dog sleeping in the sun, twitching its tail when a child comes over and pats the top of its head before running away, giggling.
- ray believes in god, and in looking at all the little girls in their sunday best, ribbons and bows and tiny socks with lace on them.
- shady pines apartments, four shabby buildings tucked off the road near the highway. across from a strip mall with nail places and a cash-loan store that advertises on tv all the time. there's also a drugstore and tiny restaurants, every one opening and closing within months.
- she lived in a town four hours away from here, in a house on a street named daisy lane. she had a mother and a father and her own room and a tv and could soemtimes stay up late to watch movies on the weekend if she ate all her dinner. she had a cat and three best friends and wanted to work with dolphins. she had posters of them on her walls, and her computer screensaver was on, a dolphin with warm eyes and a sweet grin gleaming at you. all her stuffed animals, except for the stupid ones her grandparents gave her, were dolphins. one day she went to the aquarium. she wore blue jeans, a white shirt (no logo, no designs), and sneakers (white, with white socks). she went with her fifth grade class, and since it was three days before her tenth birthday, she thought her friends would let her sit by the window on the bus. they didn't, and when they got to the aquarium there weren't any dolphins and her friends got mad because she wouldn't loan them her lipgloss- it was new, it tasted like cream soda, she didn't want to share. she was a selfish little girl. she paid for it.
- the day i got too tall to wear the white dress with short, puffy sleeves and little tucks along the chest, he filled the kitchen sink with water and shoved my head into it.
- the indian family on the second floor, always children running in and out, sometimes their tv turned up so loud at night that ray has to go down their and knock on the door, say please turn it down? thank you so much
- the stairs are chipped but solid, the washing machines always work, and management picks up the trash once a week.
- the women i'm sitting with, all older, all reading magazines that promise quick dinners and happier children, look relieved
- there is a plastic decoration on the wall across from me; clear rippled plastic resting against a blue wall. a reverse ocean, with no water for anyone to drown in.
- they've noticed the pile of wrappers around me, noticed how i sat and ate while they sipped their diet sodas or water and gave each other cautious looks if they reached near the candy when grabbing another magazine
- yogurt in the fridge, his oatmeal in its individual packets in the cabinet above the sink. five apples, one for each day when he comes home from work. five tv dinners you'll heat up at night for him to eat unless he brings something home.
- lines
- god and monster all in one, mine to worship.
- her lips tasted like cream soda, but she actually didn't like it at all that much (it was the only flavor left and her mother had agreed to buy her lipgloss once, just this once, and she knew she had to take what she could get) and she missed her friends.
- ray likes how smooth i am, how raw my skin is. it burns by the time he's done touching it.
- quotes
- it is good for women to look like little girls now, to have no hair between their legs. the women out in the waiting room, the ones who will not look at me, are here for that too, to be made into smooth, hairless creatures. they will have their skin polished, smoothed, so everyone can pretend they are young again. everyone wants the young.
oct 5 2016 ∞
oct 5 2016 +