None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive

by Carolyn Prusa

She keeps buying wasabi almonds. I eat them because she seems so fragile and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But they are too spicy and leave green powder on my fingers.

“I just want to tell you that I love you.” “If you don’t move this instant, I’ll be loving you under my shoe.” To prove my point, I launch a karate kick into the air. “That was weird,” Des says. “Get gone.”

Next to the side door I sit on a kitchen chair, wriggle off my wet sneakers, and peel off my socks. I slide my feet into my ragged deerskin slippers waiting beside the mat. This sensation is the closest I have come to orgasm in months.

“Yeah,” she sniffs. She stares at me before she leans forward, plants a kiss on my lips, and whispers, “You are a smart and strong girl and I am very proud of you.” This is a sentence I tell my daughter every morning before school and it’s possible hearing it repeated back to me at this moment in time might transform my body from a solid into tiny droplets of water.

if we go our separate ways, does all of this disappear? If we stay together, will I be buried alive underneath it? I’ve got to be there somewhere. I will look for me underneath the rubble of the hurricane.