My Bio

I was born without breathing and placed in a small hand-painted basket, oxygen cupped over my fragile mouth. Actually, I was gingerly put in a cardboard box. I always wished it had been a basket. I remember it smelled faintly of grove oranges and coriander. Though my mother told me it was recycled from a case of champagne that was popped on New Year’s Eve, four months and one day before my May Day arrival.  

How does it feel to weigh the same as a rabbit? I remember. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once. My legs felt small and powerful even though my bones were soft and still molding. I had a light dander that I had  hoped would morph into a full-fledged warming fur. My nose was crinkled and acute. My eyes sealed shut, thank goodness, as I was unable to see the monitors and fluorescent lights, all which would have brought me back towards the collapsing womb.  

And then there is a very long gap. I don’t recall. Or maybe I blocked it out. I found myself with a man I’d been with for more than a decade. Almost two. From rabbit to him. Yes, there are flashbacks, memories that come to me:  

I am a girl of ten and insist on wearing a paper bag over my head at home so my parents can’t see me. 

I am in college dating a man who wants to watch me eat my own hair.  

I am at my first job and my boss tells me every day my dress is see-through even after I start wearing a cement coat with galoshes and Coke-bottle glasses.

But then I am with this man for my whole life. Until now. He drives me over the Brooklyn Bridge. It wasn’t until after that he tossed me over. After we’d driven thousands of times, over years where we kept our own rabbits. A fluffle. Some angry. And jumpy. A few soft, and sweet. The rabbits were masters in role-play. One cashmere lop, with a particularly sultry mouth, wore a costume. I remember that. She was dressed as a sexy nurse.   

Tomorrow, I will meet another man. One who wears a mask of mirrors, shards melded onto his face. When I stand too close, I will see myself through his dark energy, reflected and refracted. Cracked. With light coming through.

This piece was featured in Volume 4. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.