Aki

I hated all of them for what the man had done to me and I hated myself and when I saw how easily you killed them I felt a bright hope that you would then kill me. You were carrying me like a bride and your breath smelled like trash on a beach. There were crows in the tree and the horrible mangy black wolf dog was down and barking when you carried me out the door. I didn’t know why you wouldn’t kill me and send me down to Hell to wait for you there. I began to struggle and bray and tear at my hair and throat, wanting you to understand how badly I wanted to be killed. The black dog’s yellow fangs were slick and moving fast in the fading red light. My head was pounding. Your hands oily wet like the floor of a swamp. The black dog was barking and it was a terrible hot sound, the first I’d ever heard. You commanded him to stop, a low terrible snake sound to your voice. The fear clenched my buttocks and raced up my bottom and I felt the urine rush out of me and heard it on the ground. The black dog ceased to bark and I heard the wind, heard the emptiness of the world and you breathing it in. It was like being born. Your oily hands, cool and murderous but not for me not for me you had not come for me. I wanted to make you promise to kill me and take me back to Hell with you when you went back but I didn’t have words then. Only later would I learn that in a world full of demons you were not one.