Epulotic

I like to pretend this is just another hand-me-down story by my grandmother, another black and white 1950’s photograph tucked away in a shoebox, that the first time a glass of whiskey scorched through the cataract of his veins never spilled onto my face like a test tube exhausted in blood, saturating my cheekbone like a steam room and dashing the walls of my chin into his knuckles was just his way of telling me, “I just want to protect you.” The second time was just a joke, I promise. We were playing “pretend you were my wife” Would you etch the contours of your fist on the corner of my right eye like? Making it harder for my peripheral vision to detect your next muscle. Making it easier for you to see me inside out, as if this whole time you were searching for my mother inside of me “Yes, a little closer to the bone, would you?” He left the shadows of his knuckles on my neck like a pearl necklace “I could hear them contracting at night, the bruises trying to find a blanket under my skin: it gets cold when he is around.” The third time was less painful. My muscles were immune to his mood swings. I didn’t flinch anymore. My body was a dummy: fearless and helpless. I earned each swing like a dog treat, he said. So the next fists became an epulotic agent for the bruise before and after it. I expected them with good intentions like birthdays. Felt them like panting flesh fixed in a coma. This was normal. By the end of the month, my face was an ant farm, overwhelming with caverns. I would tear from each cleft as though my face was a strangling sponge, after another striking dinner.