When you still texted me things like dream good dreams I confided once that the night before I had dreamed about severed hands. I had to hide them I said I didn’t do the severing but I thought someone would think I did so I buried them everywhere and you said um ok night babe and I feel like I should’ve seen the forecast for the weather under which you were tilling my lands suspecting I wielded a secret knife. You scoured for evidence and I panicked in the shadowy dirt with the weight of believing I had something to hide raining onto my head and my scraping fingertips in the clay echoing louder in the cavern of my belly which I was too anxious and busy digging to feed so my body brittled and you touted this as part of the proof you were seeking and of course now in hindsight I see I should’ve shoveled up every bloody appendage, applied generous salt garlic and sage, fried them in the heavy cast iron my best friend gave me for my birthday she said so you can fill yourself up. I should’ve piled them on my kitchen table tasting slowly every last bite because even the dark things thrown into our dirt can be transfigured into what feeds. I am not someone who is good. I’m just someone seeking the unsavory scraps of trying. I should’ve invited you over to dine and when I offered you a taste and you declined I would not have minded Content and brimming, I’d have waved a hand and said I’m going to bed, you can let yourself out.
Bio
Elise Ball
Elise Ball is an artist and writer currently residing in Southern Appalachia, though she hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte, where she also serves as an editorial assistant for Qu magazine. Her work was recently featured in TulipTree Review and Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose.