Sucker Punch It probably happened more than once; hands, less than soft, headed in a direction opposite of affection. Maybe it happened and I let it, or maybe my say in the matter is imagined, remembered with more agency than actual. Most of it is gone now, the memory like a window’s condensation lost to summer. It probably happened more than once, but I remember it only once: the quick exertion of a fist towards the center of my body, force like wind that splits the trees in my yard. It was a test of my core strength, he would tell me, as I sat curling over my living room rug, trying to hide the nausea’s climb from intestine to esophagus. I swallowed whatever was on its way up. I wanted to prove I could handle anything dealt, even if it meant something rupturing inside of me. Nothing did, rupture I mean, but I can remember hoping it would, that this thing out of my control, anything out of my control, a burst organ or meteor or else, could put an end to us in the way I didn’t know how
On Tremor Most days, the biggest burden is putting on a band-aid, or fastening a belt, an impossible necklace: the small things reminding me what a body is supposed to do. Sometimes I am the belligerent woman in the store, the pharmacy, at work, fumbling, in front of an audience, my wallet out of my purse, ID out of my wallet, out of my hands and onto the counter, the floor, whatever there is for poorly handled items to fall to. I am the drunkest abstinence, the spilled wine glass, the split dish, the cracked jar of pasta sauce in an otherwise quiet grocery aisle, disabled by all of the buttons in the world. I worry the witnesses, the unfamiliar, the DUI checkpoint, the introductions I dread like diagnosis. If we are what we eat then I am all fingers, all hands, all scraps of parts held steadiest by mouth. I am the elderly without empathy, the pregnant, young and healthy, the supplements and essential oils someone’s aunt swears by, all of the superfluous healing envying the eased mechanics of waiters, surgeons, painters. In my closet, I am crippled. In public, I am reason for concern, uncertainty, audacity. I, the supreme ambiguity. At least the extra limb would have a name, know how to carry a plate, hold a pencil. What is the body if not a refused caption? The only bathroom in the building, and its door handle broken.
On Gratitude Blessed I am to not be twenty two shoveling confetti cake into my mouth from the kitchen floor after a birthday party he showed up to three hours late. Blessed I am to not be twenty two with the role of animal at feeding time, a fish with its gaping mouth fixed open, a forecast of indefinite storm, the present refusing future. Blessed I am to not be twenty two and a body insatiable, a stomach half empty, a gallbladder sick with stones. Blessed I am to not be twenty two and only exist at the end of somebody’s day, a weekend question mark, somewhere between a morning’s extra hour and an orchestrated escape. Blessed I am to not be twenty two, delicious and devastated and full of his saliva, purple haired and flailing, blonde haired and translucent, a diorama of guts and fluid, a performance of digestion on display. Blessed I am to not be twenty two and horny only for the things that hate me, that ignore me, that rather me dead, that do not call first, that cross the street without me, that are always five steps ahead in public. Blessed I am to not be twenty two begging the bathtub drain to swallow me, the bed to suffocate, the earthquake to collapse the house above me. Blessed I am to not be twenty two, or twenty three, or nineteen, or any of the ages I let men utensil my bones, when I existed only to be available, to be a meal or less than, a drink before bed, a bed, the whole home, the world’s end, the last bit of earth to touch feet. I was a girl and a field, sun-soaked and splintering. The years happened, the planet moved. When things couldn’t be worse, they got better
My Mother, Post-Proposal Leaning up against a glass table, peach placemat under the silver ice bucket, her legs point like a compass towards the camera, lean and longer than mine have ever been,or will ever be. I used to be smaller than you are now, she tells me unprompted, after a minute or two of sizing up my shape. Two shoe sizes less before I came into the picture. it’s frightening to think what the creation of another can do to feet and their width. Her shirt has the pigment and body of the late eighties, hair, too. A single flower stands in a vase behind her, plastic, perhaps. In the hours before the capture, there was a bubble bath, and a small velvet box housing a question. My father had planned a ride inside a hot air balloon but decided against it. He was afraid she might drop the ring if it were presented from such a great height. People tell me I don’t look much like her. Her wrists appear delicate in a way mine have always refused to. I have the wingspan of a grandfather I have never met. I would imagine my parents covered every square inch of that hotel room in celebration that night. They would tell me that after their wedding they sat nude on the bed counting their money. I wasn’t there on either occasion, except maybe in cells. The picture, likely printed at a CVS or elsewhere, looks like Palm Springs and the prediction of thirty years. Of course there were breaks, one longer than the others, but we don’t talk about those. We could, but we choose not to.
Sabbatical My dad moved out and took the dog with him. It was my senior year of high school. He slept on an air mattress on the floor of his office and I slept in their bed with my mom. Miraculously, they would eventually reunite and live like that year never happened, but that year happened. The timeline is off, but I remember it. The house was still, there were wine nights, and my mom weighed less than I did. I know it was fall, because I dumped my boyfriend for being too distant, busy. His best friend’s parents were separating. Holidays and school breaks are where I get mixed up. Somehow we ended up on vacation together twice that year, but the how is lost on me. I remember California ending poorly, but not the reason. In May, I turned 18 and there was a grocery store cake. They would figure out their problems, whatever they were. That, or they were too lazy to entertain the thought of whoever would come next. My mom gained the weight back, I went to college. They went back to sharing a bed like they never stopped. I remember the year but not well. Maybe it was the medication that stopped working, or the sex I didn’t want but was having regularly. I binge ate Dominos pizza and graduated in some underwhelming percentage of my class. I walked across the stage and let someone grope me on the bus back from the celebratory bonfire. It’s almost like that year never happened, but it happened. There’s pictures that tell me it did. I’m in them, but I can’t say much else.
*****
Danielle Shorr (she/her) is an MFA alum and professor of disability rhetoric and creative writing at Chapman University. She has a fear of commitment in regard to novel writing and an affinity for wiener dogs. Her work has been published by Lunch Ticket, Vassar Review, Hobart, Split Lip, The Florida Review, etc. and is forthcoming in The New Orleans Review and others.
