Although Sister is dead, she doesn’t rot, her stomach doesn’t start to swell, her skin doesn’t grow saggy, doesn’t start clinging to the bone, she doesn’t start to smell of death. She’s just becoming something else, she has been something else for a long time now. On her surface, the Parasite pushes and pulls at nothing, in search of a living host.
Three days pass while Sister’s corpse lies on the table. Then, Uncle makes me throw her out, but he lets me leave the table as it is.
We sit on my bedroom floor and we eat the flesh
of orange rinds like how one would suck
the marrow of a bone and the acid stings
around my cuticles i have spent years chewing them open
and i tell you i feel weird
today
not like myself
so you ask me what I need and the answer floats
around me too intangible to grasp but
in my hands is the body of an orange and i think
take my body in your hands, peel me back like citrus,
make me bleed acid
into the cracks of your surface
and underneath your fingernails,
a long spiral of rough skin falling into the shape of an S
on the floor, scoop me empty like the meat
of a rind, reach through me, locate my xylophone ribs,
the air between my bones will vibrate with
your notes, your notes will form a melody,
play me a song, any song, serenade the S
on my bedroom floor that will no longer be mine
because i have been sucked completely dry,
and the song will be played for
no one but you,
white ribs and a pretty windchime and sour-sweet
in your mouth and rind
under your nails
and an S
will be all that’s left of me,
what i mean to say is i need you to
love me unperson me make me you(rs)
but of course i can’t say any of these things to you
so we sit on my bedroom floor and we eat the flesh
of orange rinds like how one would suck
the marrow of a bone where i tell you i feel weird today
not like myself
so you ask me what i need and i say
just another orange please
(...) Sienna sharpens my knife before she leaves. She knows I'll never get it done by myself. "What happened to your fish?"
We look at the empty aquarium on the desk in my living room. I wonder if it can still be called an aquarium when it's empty. Without water and fish, without life, it's just a glass box with nothing in it. "It died." When I discovered it floating on the surface of the water like a leaf, I cleaved it in half so I could pick its bones, like in the old fairy tale. I wrapped them in cloth and put the bundle underneath my bed, half-hoping for something good to happen.
"Oh," she says, and sounds like when she calls me cute because she has nothing better to say. "I'm sorry to hear that." I watch Sienna put on her shoes. "Of what?"
It takes my brain a few seconds to catch up. "I don't know," I say, shrugging. "Neglect, probably."
"Right," she says, pursing her lips. "Well, see you next month little sister," she says, her hand ghosting my cheek as if she isn't quite sure what to do with it. She closes the door, and my box echoes. Sienna, like always, takes something with her when she leaves. I stand alone, watching my reflection.