SLIPPING AWAY, FOURTH FLOOR - sandra ketcham

Gravity pulls at her toes as she sits on the couch, her legs dangling off the edge. Gravity stretches her legs into long, thin strands of plasticine. Gravity changes her DNA.

Her voice is softening into someone else's and her body is eating itself from the inside. She's lost several muscles and a lung already. She clutches her kidneys at night. She carries her heart inside her purse to keep it safe.

She lives with a man who loves her. The man shows his love by plucking out the hairs on her head and body. He does this while he fucks her, while they watch TV. Only a few strands remain.

Tonight, she drinks red wine and spins and spins. She covers her body with glitter and paint to transform it into something visible. Tonight, she flies, over her neighbor's balcony, over the bushes, the jasmine, and into the pool below.

When the man that loves her finds her there, floating in the pool, he notices how the water clings differently to her hairless parts. He mentions this to the forming crowd. They nod in agreement. The glitter and paint spread out from her body, forming wings in the water.





Sandra Ketcham
http://sandraketcham.tumblr.com/
Paris Spleen
Charles Baudelaire