there’s a lot of blood , was my first thought , & then a satisfaction crept up through the rib cage which unbidden & was so violent & raw & lingering that i terrified myself , couldn’t speak in case i laughed or screamed . [ which was allowed in the case of patricide ? all i could do was stare at her blankly , looking for answers , like it was fair of me to ask that of her . ]
i can’t tell you what happened in the time between me rising from our father’s prone body , & my sister scrubbing my hands stinging raw in the kitchen sink , the smudgy dish rag soaked pink & ruined . i can only remember flashing details . the exact pitch of mari’s hoarse whisper , telling me it’s okay . the way the filmy afternoon sun filtered through the window in quiet hues of orange . i could tell you that when all the blood was free from our skin & we’d changed into new clothes , she threw that rag into the black bag we’d shoved our old clothes into with the intention of throwing it down a sewer drain . but the event itself passed in a blur with bursts of clarity , suspended as i was in a haze of a pyrrhic victory neither of us had ever seen coming .
mari’s firm , slender palms grip the sides of my face , pulling me out of it & back into the present . mitsuru , she snaps , & i want to say , i can’t stand the way you say that . sometimes she’ll pull on this skin , this presence , her own rabbity fretting peeling back to something more solid , something with teeth . & when i imagine our mother i can’t see her face . now all i see is mari , just like this , heavy with an age not her own & wearing the mantle of the mother neither of us had . ❝ let me go . i’m fine . ❞ & i know she knows i’m lying , but there’s nothing either of us can say , so we don’t , & i pull her hands away , willing myself back into reality . ❝ we gotta ... we gotta get out of here . ❞
@sasayma .
