E.J. Schwartz: Like a String of Blood
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Sometimes the Pooch Can’t Be Unscrewed
Before God or Wednesday, when
my sisters weren’t my sisters, I heard
whispers of local girls in swimsuits, like match sticks
baking on lounge chairs next to pools of gasoline.
I was alone but still afraid of being left. I made sisters
from my ex partners’ old lovers. Sister after sister, now, we shake
our tambourines, lay in sleeping bags under a roof we built, grow hair
to our dimpling sides. Everyday is a Wednesday
so while we do not hump our partner, we gladly hump ourselves.
It’s even better, we say, rubbing crust from our eyes, sucking
snot through tubes in our nose, peeling death off our hearts.
We gift one another Valentine’s, like sprinkled cupcakes rotting
our teeth, our tongues, pinker than pink, pink as my clit and the clits
of my sisters, circled, once, no longer, by our partner’s red thumb,
red like it was lit from behind, like a string of blood passed
sister to sister, door to door.
E.J. Schwartz is currently pursuing her MFA degree at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her micro-memoir was recently selected by The New York Times for its Tiny Love Stories feature and her flash fiction piece, “Melon,” just won UNCW’s FlashLIT contest. Her writing appears in The New York Times, Threadcount, Necessary Fiction, among others. She tweets @byEJSchwartz.
