metal mouth
i was a handsome girl. i would have been five, maybe six when my momma cut my long, red hair all off. i’d wanted to grow it to my toes and wear it in plaits so that one day a charming boy would come and i could hang it out the window and he could rescue me. but my momma didn’t want me rescued, she lifted it all up above my head in a fist and attacked it with the scizzors. i remember the sharp cutting sounds and then my hair floating softly and silently through the air, more dancing than death. i thought it looked like snow falling so i held out my tongue. my mother saw and smacked my head so that my teeth clamped down on my tongue and i tasted my blood like the taste of forks. it swelled around my mouth and dripped into my lap. and now i remember the sounds she made, a painful breath of hate followed by a sigh of love. my poor mother. the blood pooled in my mouth and my hair fell unevenly between my shoulders and ears for the next three days.