by Sumitra Singam
The way the cucumber-phallus slices into little bits, the way the rambutan testicles crack open under my teeth as their sticky juice spills all over my fingers. The way the chest-hair-grass buzzes off with the whipper snipper, and the way my rotator cuff aches from how the damn thing isn’t anchored to anything; the way the whipper snipper is called a “stroke straight shaft” and the way that feels against my hands. The way the curtains billow, like a nightgown being lifted stealthily, and the heartsink turn of any doorknob, even the one leading to the backroom of Kmart where the employee disappeared to find the Five Hundred Affirmations for a New You! book I wanted. The way I shrug and say, Sure, to a massage because it’s such a normal thing to do. But the way the moans of the man in the next massage cubicle sound, and the wet slap of the oil on his back. The way my own masseuse’s hands are always just-too-close, and the way my muscles quiver like a dog in almost-sit. The way my hypnagogic mind makes a menace out of the pedestal fan, a shudder out of the wind, a grunt and thrust out of the possum snuffling in the dirt outside. The way my daughter’s cry in the night pounds my heart and I leap to her defense, and the way I say, Ssh it’s okay, more to me than to her. The way the bathroom door doesn’t have a lock, so I have to employ a trick with the drawer, the way I panic when we move into a house without a drawer in the bathroom, only cupboards; and the way I yell at myself for being so stupid not to notice. The way I sit, like a fraud, in the therapist’s chair, telling women, It isn’t your fault, you didn’t ask for this. But the way I ask for it, then immediately don’t want it, and the way my husband’s face crinkles in confusion. The way I must carry bits of you in me, so there will be no room, when I try, for a baby, and my daughter has to come to me a different, less easy way. But also, the way my husband, with his kind hands – large, rough, dry hands that are more real than anything else in the world, grabs the whipper snipper, and says, I can do that. The way he holds me, when I want it-don’t want it, and just waits. And the way it becomes a different story, and the way I don’t need to look for drawers in bathrooms, or doorknobs, or curtain-nightgowns. The way now, my body is my own, and the bits you were too ashamed to hold, are in a jar for safekeeping. The way I don’t know how this story ends, but the way I have a feeling that one day, that jar will just be another thing gathering dust on the shelf, and the way I will be able to throw it away without a second thought.
Sumitra writes in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces, both beautiful and traumatic to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). She works in mental health. You can find her and her other publication credits on twitter: @pleomorphic2
Emerge Literary Journal 