And I'll pretend that everybody here wants peace

What It’s All About | Denise Duhamel

I put the pop­corn in my mouth
one ker­nel at a time
because I was afraid the beige pol­ish
had yet to dry on my soft nails
that bent to and fro when they grew
too long. The nails I once used as shov­els
in the sand­box, that peeled the skin
of my sister’s fad­ing tan. I tried to get
the biggest flakes off her back, the biggest rips
before they split. She thought this strip­ping
a gross task, but I loved get­ting to the under­neath,
her new melon skin, a sur­prise
like lip­stick. Though I was too young
to wear it, I obsessed about the twist
of the tube like a pen twirl to get at the ink
or like paper curl­ing away
from the crayon to get more of the pink.
When Alfie said, “If you lose a bird
you can always replace her,” I was con­fused.
I knew he was wrong, but he said it
so assured as I blew on my nails
mak­ing sure they weren’t speck­led with salt.
I thought: well, if I lose a boy, I can always
replace him. I knew I was wrong, too,
as I sat in that front-row plush seat,
but still I decided I should try to be the kind of girl
who could write “good­bye” with Revlon
on a bath­room mir­ror and fly out the window.