Erasure

 

There was nothing left to do, so she decided to erase herself. Bit by bit. Bone by bone. The gaps leaking black instead of red somehow, as if her body had merely been redacted, which only confused her more.

So, she persisted, deleting her earlobes and eyebrows, her elbows that always bumped into the wrong places. The wonky nose she never liked. The strawberry locks of hair her grandmother once twirled in her fingers and called Heaven-sent. 

But that wasn’t enough, so she eliminated her teeth next, then her breasts, because they were far too heavy, and besides, boys always stared there like wax statues whose mouths could actually foam. 

Yet none of the erasure mattered because she still felt too full, too present and obvious. After all, she was flunking math and science, flunking out of school entirely, and her schoolmates still posted lie after lie online.

Eventually the choice was easy: she stripped away the rest of her in a few quick strokes, starting with her pubic hair, her vagina, and everything else, though she left her uterus intact, just in case.