Don't Kiss Me: Stories(21)

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Mitzi dug under the willow tree. Den of bunnies, she knew it! Flung one by one into the sun. What the? the old man said. His glass landed too hard on the table, glass on glass, the sound of a bright bright ending. Is it over? the younger man lurching awake. She’s killing them! this from the boy. Don’t look! from the younger woman. Oh, Brock, the old woman tried to say. Her mouth lined with candies. The bunnies gritted with dirt, the satisfying crunch! Little mewling whines, nin! Nin! All out now. Writhing ones first, pink as antacids. Gray one, still as a stone in the grass. Yolks tumbling from the old woman’s mouth, Brock! The old man with his hands to his face. The younger woman, flap of skirt, yanking hand. Rubies of blood on the dog’s snout, taffy-tears of pink skin dotting her tongue. The younger man, I was asleep! The bunnies in the grass, unearthed and scattered, twitching, all but the gray one. The old man, No, oh no. The dog a grin. The younger woman bent over the dog. The old woman, lapful of sunbeams, They’re suffering! The old man to his knees despite his knee. And the boy. The boy thinking, Cinnamon, cinnamon. The boy walking slow, the boy raising his leg and bringing it down firm as a hammer onto the pinks, one by one, each one a starburst under his shoe, all quiet now, all dark, he knew what was in this cup, but he’d never be able to say.





LIKE


We are at, like, a dance. We are like wearing these new tops. We put lipstick all around our mouths. We feel jealous of each other’s mouth, but like that isn’t cool so we keep it to ourselves. We don’t want to dance with anything chubby because it’s like dancing with our stepdads, or dancing with some like weird baby grizzly boy. We are like yuck. We want to dance with anything that plays football or like golf. Anything that like might play the savior in a movie or a TV show. Or like the killer. We wouldn’t mind being, like, bladed. We some of us don’t have titties but some of us do and it is hard to be, like, happy about it. The other day we felt each other’s chests in the locker room. Like some of us got called ant bite and some of us got called pudding piles. Some of us agreed that, like, pudding piles are just fat, just floppy mounds of gross fat and it’s like do some push-ups. But then later we all were thinking how it’d be okay to have some fat because then your like top would look better and like maybe the quarterback would ask you to get in his car. Some of us felt more than each other’s chest in the locker room but, like, whatever, it’s the locker room. Some of us get all burned up in the locker room. We like, like, watching. Like thinking about being in some guy’s car could happen at any time and, like, a lot of the time it happens in the locker room. Some of us have, like, been in that car. Some of us like have, like, bite marks and we love how they’re like rainbows, purple green yellow gone. Some of us bite ourselves because, like, whatever. At this dance we pretend there are arrows pointing out each ant bite or pudding pile right at, like, the savory boys. This helps with our posture and also it’s like, You, come. We’re, like, always imagining what like the best night would be and it’s like someone took a poker and stirred up our embers and, like, whoosh, we’re all of us like our own flame. It’s like, You, come, and bring that poker. We can like taste it. Some of us are thinking bratwurst, like how our stepdads cook sometimes, all cooked and, like, firm and ready to be eaten. And, like, the juices. Some of us know better because we’ve been in that car. Like there’s no platter, there’s no, like, small bites. There’s no stopping when you get full. We’re at this dance and some of us keep going to the bathroom to sip out of this bottle of, like, iced tea but like it’s only half iced tea and like the other half is rum. We throw our heads back to get it down. Our throats are jagged and it’s, like, who needs a poker? We take our shoes off and slouch in the bathroom and it’s like what a relief and like we all see each other the way we are in the locker room and it’s like we’re just girls and like we hate each other for our hair and legs and titties and mouths and even like wrists, but we would never say that to each other because that’s not how you like treat a friend. And we’ll be friends forever so like we hate each other until our hate turns into like love. Some of us have dreams that we’re carrying the others of us on our shoulders because the others of us are like dead, and foom we drop the bodies into this big like fire and there goes the hair there goes the eyelashes there goes the like perfect Disney princess wrists, but the others of us probably have the same dream because like they want to watch our ankles and tans and thighs burn until we’re just meat, so it’s like we get each other. We put our shoes back on and point the arrows out again and like we’re back in the gym waiting and we get pulled onto the dance floor and we like put our hands on our boys’ necks and like some of us swirl our nails in our boys’ hair and some of us are rewarded with like little denim or khaki animals, little sea monkeys we make grow with like barely any work on our part. We pretend we don’t know our hips are swiveling or, like, some of us are short so we have to really work our abs, and our boys hold us tight and we smell their deodorant and cologne and sweat and like their essence under it all, which is like garlic and like dirt. And our boys probably think they are doing it to us too, like we’re, like, buckling and folding and melting, but that is like pretending that the stars in the sky are just the pearl buttons on our tops and skirts, just unfasten and zoom the heat of the universe of our like necks and titties and the parts we spritz and oil the most is our boys’ to like have. Like we’re like theirs.