a story of severed

a story of severed

He cut out my tongue. The pain quickly ceases. All of the flavours I can’t stand, the words I don’t speak.

Gone.

He holds it in his hand with no regard of the scarlet waterfall gushing from my lips and splashing on the floor. It paints my bare feet crimson. I nearly slip.

The shame of it coming to this, of having to have my tongue sliced off by someone that used to know my secrets, shames me. The last time I bled with such embarrassment was my first period. No one ever told me how girls bleed. I was in sixth grade. I wore white shorts to school that day.

It’s one of the secrets I never told him.

My tongue wiggles in his loose grip. He’s disgusted by the entire episode and throws it on the ground. As if it’s seeking a way back to me, it offers two pathetic twitches in my direction before lessening to a cold fleshy pile on the sticky kitchen floor.

I view the instrument he used to lacerate what was too big for my mouth. It isn’t much sharper than a butter knife. When he reached for my neck to achieve an adequate grip to suit his intention, I rested my head on the counter top.

I looked him in the eyes. I stuck out my tongue. I glanced down at it one last time. He didn’t speak during the process. And I didn’t struggle.

I imagined I was hang gliding. That seemed like a quiet place. Someplace I could stay now that we won’t be saying anything further.

Had I not consistently abused my right to syllables with attempts of honesty and inappropriate questions; questions like, ‘Can you find a way to forgive me? Why can I never say no?’ I might miss the last thing he took.

If I could still talk, I would say thank you.