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Making Small Things


by Siolo Thompson


When I was seven I had one sister and two brothers. When I was eight I had two brothers, but no sister. When I did have a sister people would always say that we didn't look alike at all. She had auburn hair and milk chocolate eyes and a hundred freckles scattered across her face and arms and chest. I had brown hair and blue eyes and only three small freckles behind my left shoulder (you can see them still when you are fucking me from behind).

We were the same and different. I was wild, wild, and she was calm. A pair of dolls we were. Holding hands in thin white dresses. Running through fields. Spying on boys. Making small things from grass and weed and wildflower. One day (it was a Tuesday) all those small things came to an end. My sister disappeared you see. She was eaten alive by a multi-headed dog. She was swallowed whole by an anaconda that was then swallowed by another bigger snake. She was raped and murdered by a 41-year-old man in the basement of his house at 816 Oak Grove Ave. She was swooped up by a giant condor and carried to his rocky nest.

Sometimes I dream about her. Torn into pink, bite-sized lumps and fed to ugly condor chicks. If I close my eyes I can imagine her as a chew toy between Cerebarian teeth. My small naked sister lying on a concrete floor with blood between her legs and lavender skin. There she goes into the unhinged jaws of a great jungle snake. Come back small one. (sometimes I say this in my sleep, silly, silly me). If I were seven and wearing a thin white dress I would still have a sister with freckles and auburn hair.

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