Britney

I wish I had pictures of every single one of the scabs I picked as a small girl so I could put it on this shirt. I can see all of them on a rotating rack—me on my bed, on the polka dots, wiping blood on the wall. Me inching my stubby fingertips underneath a barely raised crust and holding my breath as I heard that slight snap of skin ripping. You really had to listen for it, and I liked that the most. I used to train my ears to do a lot.

Sundays in my old apartment had a certain ugliness that made me cry when I woke up. One Sunday, I had a dream that the world ended and I woke up and remembered that my mother was alive and clung to her until she got annoyed. Last January, I woke up from a dream where she had died and I woke up looking for her comfort and remembered something different. I didn’t go to school that day.

I told someone that I was the last Oracle of Delphi and they said that I was probably the first because it was all bullshit. What is there left to say when all of your intrusive thoughts come true? I panicked one night and couldn’t fall asleep so I crawled over my mom and locked myself in the bathroom and bawled and PLEADED SO HARD out loud with God—for 20 minutes straight—not to take her away from me, not to let her die, please God I’m so sorry anything but her. I prayed in my mind, too, in case my voice was a transgression. This was years before cancer. That’s how I know.

She came to the door and asked me if I was OK. If I could swallow up her voice now and hold it in my mouth like a bullfrog I would never talk again. The glow through my skin would be enough.

My favorite scar, left leg, is gone. It was from my favorite park in Prospect Heights. There are others but I don’t remember their moments. My favorite scar on another person, left hand, is gone. It was from my best source. ♦