Toothpicks | Teen Ink

Toothpicks

December 8, 2010
By stfonyc SILVER, Brooklyn, New York
stfonyc SILVER, Brooklyn, New York
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I do not like to be alone. I do not like to be alone. I do not like to be alone. Goddamit. I do not like it when you leave me here alone. I do not like it when you let the dogs feed, chow, scraping every piece of skin off of my body. I do not like it when the flesh is gone and I do not like it when you lean down in front of my skinless face, laugh in disgust, and proceed to clean your teeth with a toothpick, occasionally rubbing your stomach, petting your little beasts, and looking down at the toothpick as you draw it from your mouth. I am appalled when you use a scrap of my shredded shirt to wipe the toothpick off. I am sick when you return the toothpick to your mouth.

The sound of the scraping seeps into me rapidly and there’s barely anything left to absorb it into. The sound floods my ears, worse than anything I’ve ever heard. Worse than the sound of you laughing and that was pretty bad. When you squat down in front of me and press your lips against my rough cheekbone, I am going to die. When you smile, I actually vomit. Dry heave at least. Your dogs have eaten my stomach too. I can see them over in the corner shredding it, devouring every piece of me.

I know what you’ll do next. You’ll leave my skeleton in the sun to bleach out until it is the white of daddy’s freshly laundered shirts. Until I look like carefully sculpted snow. When I look like this, you will laugh some more, whistling old musical tunes while you work to lay my body in cement. I will be the skeleton of a small girl, imprisoned for eternity is this piece of cold, rough plaster. I will never be able to break free.


When the cement is hard, when it is rough, when it is the color of sand, you will move me once again and add me to your collection. Rows and rows of encased skeletons, pressed into this cement to be preserved or trapped or whatever you’d like to call it. I will remain there for my life, for my death, for my afterlife and I will whisper to the other girls in the darkness and we will talk about you when we know you’ve gone out. We will talk about what happy song you were whistling when you brought the new girl down. We will talk about what you whisper to us. We will think about you. We will laugh about you. We will cry about you. We will pray for the other girls out there that they never find you, however charming and sweet you can be. We will love you not for being kind to us, but for destroying us before we destroyed ourselves. We will never understand you.


You will forever haunt our dreams and waking lives. We will forever love you. You will forever love us. You will forever visit us. Forever. Every time you come downstairs and shine the flashlight into my eyes, I will swear that your expression softens and you can remember which one I am in the sea of broken souls. I swear that you will remember the day I walked past your house and you complimented my hat. It was new. It was red. It was cashmere. You will remember these details and how I blushed and you offered me hot cocoa. You will remember the first time you kissed my cheek. You will remember that I loved you. You will remember how much I cried when I let go, put myself in your palm. You will remember that you comforted me. You will remember the day that I screamed and you yelled and you beat and beat and beat. You will remember that I was only sixteen.


I like to imagine that you feel sorry for what you did.


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