the girl in the sink

last night, i kissed the wine glass until it cracked from want. i wanted red—not wine. not again. the walls talked in their usual static, soft-lipped murmurs, muffled as a hand over a mouth. i pressed my cheek to the faucet and heard my mother crying through the pipes— or maybe it was me, thirteen years ago, learning how to disappear without moving. there’s a spoon in the bathtub. bent. like my will on sundays. i keep dreaming of teeth— not mine, not his, not even human. they bloom in my sheets, fall from the ceiling fan, float like fish in the back of my throat when I try to sing. i spit out things I never swallowed— a matchstick, a fishhook, his name. And still, my reflection smiles when I cry. she blinks twice when I don’t move. she’s not me. she’s better. she stayed. i was seven when I buried the bird. it was breathing. it begged in feather-language. i told it, softly, "i'm sorry" as I packed the dirt in. and i meant it. and i liked it. and that’s the worst part. there is a howl in me too big for my ribs. there is a god in me who does not forgive. i sleep beside her. she strokes my hair. she smells like copper and static. she is me. she is not. and still, the sink runs red some nights.