Submit to Me

a story about a girl i love

In a mint green kitchen she found herself, curled up and stuck to the floor like the ash from a candle

burning too long.

The backsplash was crystal clear. The counters were white. She used to dream about space to roam, just a hare in a cage, a defenseless animal bred for prey.

When the call came, it rang through the epidermis of her skin. The phone cord was loose, dangling, and cherry red. It was the color of the sink or what laid there. It was the color of his eyes. The blip of headlights seen too soon and yet, not soon enough.

It’s a hard reckoning.

Caught within a steel grip, there’s often nothing else one can do beyond chewing through limbs. No one prepares you for such things. There’s no instruction manual on what to do when facing the mezzanine.

On the operating table, she begged for a curtain. Just a glimpse into what a wall toward her insides might actually be. Instead, the doctor cut her open. He reminded her of her thin walls, banging, bruised, and disembodied. What she’d give to ascend above the staircase.

What she’d do and did and had done for an hour away from that kitchen floor.