Injuries

She looks up with those sad black eyes, all watery, as if to say, "you can't do this to me."

I would have agreed a year ago. Chad and I brought her home from the shelter, a fluffy little thing to love, easier than a child, cheaper. We bought organic dog food. We stocked up on squeaky toys. We let her sleep in our bed, curled up on our feet.

Shit all over the carpet, shredded cushions, toppled trash cans--these I dealt with as best I could. Chad rarely saw any of it--I cleaned the messes before he got home from work--and he loved his new canine companion so much that he easily brushed off my complaints. "Once I get that raise, I'll take her to training lessons," he'd promise, rubbing her pink belly. He never followed through, of course. 

I reach down to her, hold my bandaged hand in front of her face, remind her of her actions.

It had been too long, so I pulled Chad close to me. I kissed him, and we fell to the bed. My hand twisted through his hair, but it didn't feel good. It hurt, sharp, and I realized she had bit me. Holes in my skin, blood in his hair, on the yellow sheets. "Little bitch!"

Chad scooped her up. "You just scared her, that's all." He wrapped her up in his arms, kissed her ears, pressed his nose to hers. 

That was last night. Today I led her down to the basement with treats, since she doesn't come when I call. I led her right to the crawl space. I tightened a muzzle around her nose and jaw. I tied her paws together. We don't store anything back here--I doubt Chad even knows about it. I'll say she ran away. I propped open the door while taking out the trash. Stupid mistake. We'll drive around searching for her, check the local shelters, put up flyers. 

She looks up with those sad black eyes, all watery, as if to say, "you can't do this to me."

"No regrets," I reply. I shut the door.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

Sorry, but

Sorry, no

Sorry, the bus is running slow

Sorry, and

Sorry, not

Sorry, you don't have a shot

Sorry, who?

Sorry, why?

Sorry, I won't say goodbye

Sorry, how?

Sorry, can

Sorry, shit has hit the fan

Sometimes the only thing to do
Is just say sorry and push on through

sorry not sorry

I get these heart palpitations sometimes. I'm actually not sure if they're palpitations - it's never been diagnosed. What it feels like is a skipped heartbeat, like the muscle is staying squeezed for too long, doing these quick little knifelike flutters for a half a second before resuming its normal pace.

It happens when I'm stressed, or anxious, or angry.

It's happening now, but I'm not stressed or anxious.

I'm angry. And sad. And ... furious at this crushing sense of helplessness, at the feeling of having no agency, no real ability to directly and immediately change the problem.

A friend of mine just wrote about being catcalled - no, about being sexually harassed, because "catcalling" has a jaunty, silly, just-having-fun sound to it - by her neighbor as she was walking home. She was shocked and disgusted, and kicked herself for not having a quick clever comeback, and didn't know what to do with the rage the instance caused, and was afraid because this man lives five houses away from her.

I don't know a single woman who hasn't experienced something like this. I literally can't think of one. I can't count the stories friends have shared with me, stories that feel like deja vu: requests from strangers to just smile, baby; men on public transit rubbing themselves while they stare at your tits; casual remarks made about your body so you feel like wearing eight layers of sweaters every time you step outside; strangers following you down the street while you try to convince yourself that you're just being paranoid but knowing that the fear is there for a reason and that it's not totally illogical and hating that you have to fight yourself and feeling guilty for feeling afraid.

What's infuriating is that people do these things without shame, without any sense that this is a shitty way to treat another human being who has thoughts and emotions.

What's infuriating is the fear I and many women feel which prevents us from calling these people out - what if I say something to them that reminds them I'm a human, and what if that makes them feel ashamed and then angry and then what if that anger makes them violent (because lashing out and making the bitch shut up is easier than examining one's own flaws and admitting that one has been a supreme asshole)?

What's infuriating is the culture that dismisses these things as being "just how life is," protecting harassers and pushing the recipients of this harassment into silence, telling them to "deal with it" or "get used to it".

What's infuriating is that I can't force clarity and understanding and empathy into the minds of harassers. I wish I could Professor X them into realizing why doing and saying that shit is a terrible way to treat people.

What's disappointing, but fixable, is that even intelligent, kind, well-meaning people can be hugely unaware that this is something their daughters, sisters, friends, girlfriends deal with all the time.

And that seems to be the only solution: making people aware that this bogus unbelievable shit still happens, all the time, without any fear of social judgment or consequence. Once people are aware, things can change. Once people understand, the culture can change.

I was supposed to write a story, but this is what I'm giving you instead. I'm ... never mind. I was going to say I was sorry, because it seemed like the polite thing to do, but politeness is going to have to excuse me today. No apologies for saying what needs to be said.

My heart's still palpitating (or whatever). But I'm hoping it won't have to for long.

Lifetime Guarantee

I was six. Mama and I pressed our fingertips together, our index fingers. I ticked her pulse aloud: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Then she ticked mine: tickticktickticktick. I got scared because mine was so fast. Mother and daughter should match, I thought. I held out another finger, the littlest one, made her pinky swear I wasn't dying. She told me everyone dies someday, but she swore I wouldn't go that day. I made her promise me the same thing every day, and she did, until I was about twelve, when I decided I was invincible. What I wouldn't give now for such a guarantee.

Palm to Palm

When it's too hot
to shake hands
I want to just reach out

Reach out and touch
the pad of my index finger
so it meets with yours

Your whorls will line up
with mine and vice versa
It will be like E.T.

E.T. if he just didn't want
to touch someone else's
sweaty, sweaty palm

Because it's just too hot

Walls

In the house where I grew up, the walls of my bedroom were sticky. Not sticky enough to trap bugs, but sticky enough to keep dust and hairs. Sticky enough to pull a little on my fingers when I touched it.

The wallpaper was old and yellowing, a dusty pink and green floral pattern crossed with beige pinstripes. The wall glue had saturated the paper. Sometimes when I lay in bed in the summer, with lazy late-day orange sunlight filtering in through the gauzy white curtains, I'd reach out and stick my fingers and palm to the wall. Stick, peel, stick, peel, stick, peel, just sleepily feeling the soft tug as my skin parted from the paper. I'd turn onto my side and study the repeating patterns, turn this rosebud and that leaf into a happy face with crazy spaceman hair. Even back then I needed to wear glasses, so the flowers on the walls were blurred and vague, edges fuzzy and gentle like my stuffed animals.

The paper had a smell. Not a musty, coiling, basements-and-attics smell. Not a chemical smell, either. It was old, and comfortable, and a little bit dusty and fragile, like an old book you've read so much it has soup stains and wiggly water-warped pages and the dolphin bookmark you bought from the book-order in fourth grade still stuck in it. It was the smell of my bed and home.

At friends' houses, I'd run my hands lightly across walls that weren't sticky. They felt smooth and cool and indifferent. They didn't care if you touched them, didn't help keep a grip when you put out a hand to steady yourself. They were crisp and pretty and clean, so all you could do was smudge them up.

We moved out of that house when I was eleven. I heard the new owners pulled down the old sticky paper and painted the room a fashionable icy blue and put a saltwater fish tank in there, and now it's a home office.

Reaching and Hearing

I heard the noises in the vent night after night, but I couldn't reach up there. I was only eight. I told Aidy but she didn't believe me because I had imaginary friends. Thing is, I knew they were imaginary, my friends, and why would I make up noises as awful as all that? Squeaks like when the dentist takes that skinny metal pen to your teeth, only I could feel the sounds in my belly somehow, bouncing, like marching band drums in July. I told Aidy, but she wouldn't listen. Her room was next to mine, but she couldn't hear a thing. She didn't hear when I dragged a chair inside one night, didn't hear it wobbling as I stood on the seat. She only heard me when I burst into her room squalling, and my face was wet, and so was my hand. Even with that chair I couldn't reach all the way, and whatever it was only got away with the tippy top of my middle finger. I guess that was enough. Aidy let me sleep in her room for a couple months, and I couldn't hear, and I turned nine, and when I moved back in I still couldn't hear. I knew I could probably reach, with the chair, but I couldn't hear, so I didn't try.

Itch

It didn’t even hurt when Kyle broke his arm. There was a popping noise like opening a can of Coke right as his bike crashed, and then he woke up in the hospital with his dad checking emails in the corner and a bright green cast.

What keeps him up at night is the itching. There’s a place, right below his elbow that he can’t reach. Kyle’s tried everything: pencils, rulers, a bent-up wire hanger, a stick from the yard, but nothing satisfies.

He lies awake at night, imaging the small colony of dead skin growing, colonizing his whole elbow, then working his way down his forearm, up his hand, between his fingers.

When they take off this cast, his arm will molt like a snake.

He’s really looking forward to it.
--by Gena Parsons