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Published: 2009-02-14 21:33:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 168; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 0
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Augustine says he is going to take out my eyes because they are ugly. He tells me he can replace them with pink and white flower petals if i want to feel girly or bottle caps if i want to look like the life of the party. i tell Him i want neither and He punches me in the mouth so hard my teeth fall out. Augustine smiles and says, oh, now we have to replace those too and i give Him a big toothless black hole grin and say, thank you, Augustine.the truth is that Augustine is actually a very nice person. He is the most generous man i have ever met and invests all His time into making me beautiful. He attaches banana peels and blue yarn to my skull with rusty screws so that i have hair again. Augustine is actually saving the earth by reusing all of this garbage and i tell Him with my jack in the vocalbox voice, i am so lucky to have you love me. He tells me stories when He paints my face with battery acid and gasoline so that it doesn’t hurt so much, but the truth is i really haven’t felt it in a long time anyway. i pretend it does though because He likes to feel helpful and if He doesn’t i know He feels worthless.
there was this one time Augustine took me to a farm and told me i could pick any animal i wanted and He would buy it for me. i picked this sickly looking baby cow with pus in her eyes and i named her jezebel because i had heard that was my mother’s name and i thought it would be a nice memorial to her. when we were leaving the farm i saw the way the woman in the farmhouse stared out her door at me and i waved to her and said don’t worry, Augustine will make jezebel and i look pretty soon.
well, my hearing is mostly gone now but i can read lips a little and if i had my own i could probably speak again. Augustine says He is going to get me some soon and my new ones will be pink like my old ones were before they turned brown and melted off. and they will cover the thumbtacks He pushed into my gums so i could chew again. He is so kind and if He had not done that i would have probably starved! He has saved my life so many times. the first time was one winter when He was playing with the ol’ shotgun on the lawn and shot jezebel (my mother, not the cow) right in the stomach where i was. He said her belly just exploded! and there i was with the bullet from His gun lodged in my throat and getting blood everywhere, so He picked up a little apple from the ground near the crabapple tree and shoved it in my neck. i lived! He said i was a miracle and He brought me inside where it was warm. jezebel stayed out in the yard and she was gone by spring, but Augustine says the flowers never grew better than they did that year.
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Comments: 5
Error732 [2009-06-02 20:17:45 +0000 UTC]
Fascinating. Makes me wonder about a culture of using inanimate objects to reform ourselves . . . until I think long enough about our own.
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MahouTragicQueen [2009-02-20 18:20:21 +0000 UTC]
Early on it seems to be a cirtique of how women are viewed in society. I wonder what your intentions were by the ending?
I like how she uses lower case for "i" but capitalizes "He." It tells a lot about how she views herself.
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patterninverted In reply to MahouTragicQueen [2009-02-21 15:16:39 +0000 UTC]
Interesting take on it
You're close with the guess about how women sometimes are in society. I wasn't really going for all women in general- I know plenty of strong ones- but moreso women in abusive relationships. Maybe not even physically, but mentally. All of the abuse was a metaphor for the power struggle between people. In this case, I tried to use the capital 'h' in 'he' to make it seem like he was almost a god to her. It's that whole concept of how sometimes in abusive relationships, a man will pick apart a woman so much that eventually she will feel like he is the only one who can put her back together.
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Josh-S [2009-02-14 23:35:27 +0000 UTC]
Excellent prose.
I'm glad you're writing again.
Now I just need to do the same...
~ Josh
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