CLAUDIA CORTESE

Dear Claudia—

I don’t know why you made a broken girl. I bury glass in the moonlight, eat Oreos at midnight, dream my skin abuzz with knives. Give me red hair, tits spry as sprites. Make me a Siren on the riverbank, bewitching boys with my liquid song. I’d scissor around them, take what’s mine. When you said I dreamt my father fucked me, did you imagine your own father rocking above you? It’s true, I hate my belly fat, hide behind the spruce in gym class, but you don’t know why, Claudia. You think I feed worms to Mabel, tell her about the six-pack rings that strangle sea turtles, because I hate her. To love is to suffer, and to suffer is to give yourself to this world. The sun-freckled oak will blacken, night rotting its branches, and this I swear—if you write what happened to me beneath the unlit porch-light, I will wrap your veins around your throat.

Regards,
Lucy