Untoward Magazine

At the potluck, everyone wrote their hopes on paper napkins. The napkins were bundled and given to the Senator. The Senator put the napkins in a basket full of pies that were also given to him at the potluck. The Senator stood on a stage and said “No one bakes pies in Washington.” He said he needed pies from his constituents to be the best Senator he could be and “to show all those fat cats in Washington who had all the pies.” We cheered for that. Fat cats need to know who has all the pies. The Senator promised the people at the potluck, “All your hopes and pies are headed back to Washington with me. They’re going to break open the gridlock.“ We all cheered again. After all, our biggest hope was simply for all our little hopes to be read and respected and voted upon by those in charge of things in Washington.

It was only a hole in the ground at first — the sole hint a house would emerge. A backhoe’s claw had torn at rocks and soil and ice, disturbing their rest. The earth resisted. It didn’t want to release sleeping things but gave way to foolish human persistence. I imagine it’s how all nightmares begin. By removing those layers of earth they freed a hiding spirit, maybe one buried on purpose. It suggested the land was haunted, but it wasn’t the plot itself — it was the pond beside it. Water runs deep, infecting the water table, seeping into nature in concentric circles, bringing with it the rings of hell.

last night i had an egg trapped inside my jawline. i remember how it bulged out of my skin and i had to take the big kid scissors and cut it out. over the bathroom sink there sure was a lot of blood flesh, too. the skin from a side of my face was gone and i think i could see a bit of bone. and so i stood and looked at what a mess i’d made. i turned on the sink and watched all that water wash it away.

Nothing traumatic ever happened to me while growing up, like having my spleen removed or getting my period in white shorts, in a canoe, on a first date (Sheila Troon, no lie). That is, until the age of twenty-nine, when I woke up with sixty-seven inch breasts. There’d been no warning, no gradual swelling like a surfer’s wave, just an overnight surge of tidal tissue submerging my former self. Initially, I thought it was a dream; that a monster with gigantic feet was standing on my chest. My nightgown ripped open revealing breasts so enormous that when I sat up, I had to hold one in each hand then swing my body to the side of the bed. When I let go, they dropped to my thighs like two bags of potting soil, yanking my body forward until I nearly tipped over. “Holy shit!” I hollered.