—I FIGURED OUT A LONG TIME AGO THAT I NEED HELP

 

 

Milk Blood Heat—Dantiel W. Moniz 

 

 

--She hadn’t realized empty was a thing you could carry.

 

--“Baby,” her mother said, laughing a little, cupping her chin.” You don’t know what you need.” 

 

--The baby was the size of a Washington cherry when I lost it.”

 

--“I’m a sucker for beggars.”

 

--Nothing stays new, she wants to tell the women.

 

--There are so many ways to be filled.”

 

--And wasn’t that the most coveted thing? A pretty woman content to be near you?

 

--They gathered to pierce Frankie with their eyes whenever they could—another’s shame being the truest spectator sport.

 

--Later, everything tastes like something.”

 

--“Just stay a minute,” he barked. Why didn’t anyone ever stay?

 

--Her mother had let herself be shamed, like a bad pet.

 

--They couldn’t touch me. I trailed my laughter like a flag.

 

--It was an illusion, that stillness. Nothing ever stayed in one place.

 

--It was a relief to leave the bathroom, our apartment, cramped as it was with all our unmet needs. Our blaming silence. We never called each other anything other than baby, and now, like this. It was as if we didn’t have names at all.

 

--“You said it wasn’t me.”

--“It’s not. But then you make it that way.”

 

--“I saw what my face would look like if I died in surprise and fear. What my father’s face must have looked like. There’s nothing scarier than that.”

 

--Snow nodded the way we do when we doubt what someone else has said.” 

 

--I started to deny this, but stopped when I realized what it meant about me—that I could be both a victim and a perpetrator of a gaze.

 

--My body felt made of stars.

 

--Easily, I could imagine him as a lover, and what that quick pink tongue would do.

 

--He was so familiar, so good at it. Billie pushed the dog off the bed and closed her eyes, unbuttoned her jeans to give him more freedom. Lifted her hips. Almost let her conscious self fall away. 

 

--"You learn to be who you are, or you die as someone else. It’s simple.”

 

--"Isn’t this how all the trouble started?”