CONTENT WARNING: MISCARRIAGE

PAST

I wanted a pony so bad, and a pink leather saddle for it too. I said that I would have called my pony Starlight and my friend said that you could lose your virginity from riding a horse, or even a bike. In a dream, I was riding a dolphin wearing a pink leather saddle. It kept drooling and it couldn’t do any good tricks, but it galloped pretty well, if nothing else. When I woke up, I’d gotten my period.

I inboxed my best friend and said, “I think I’m in love with you,” and she left me on ‘seen’. I was sitting in front of the TV watching Dragon Booster and my butt cheeks were getting carpet burn. I felt all wrinkled up inside. I wrote in my diary, “I feel like a total walnut!”

I was living in a tent and my forehead was very pimply. My goldfish had just died so my grandmother had taken me into the city to get avocado toast and strawberry milk. A kid was sitting at the table beside us and my grandma said, “Kids are so small.” I agreed. A swarm of bees came in through the front door and stung everyone in the café except us.

I was dating a boy who listened to dubstep and made me a bong out of an old orange juice bottle we found on the side of the road. We got high and then he fingered me in the bushes and I thought “Wow, I’m really A Woman now.” There was a twig poking into my butt and it was dangerously close to my asshole. I was fake-moaning and a dead possum was rotting in the leaves beside us.

The bath was too hot and I decided to give myself a stick and poke while I waited for it to cool down; “yours for now” on my inner thigh. Sitting on the edge of the tub left an indent in my leg. Soaking in the water washed all the ink out of my wound and when I got out of the bath my tattoo was gone.

PRESENT

I am opening my legs and Erin is making her hands into the shape of two eggs. She is sticking one hand in my pants and one hand in my open mouth — people look prettier with their mouths open. I am cumming and the fan is whirring beside me and I look like a swan.

It’s a Tuesday and I am standing next to the coffee machine at work and it explodes. I have blisters all over the left side of my body. I keep poking at them. They are leaking yellow pus and I accidentally get some in the vat of hollandaise sauce. My boss is firing me. He is yelling, “You can kiss that workers comp goodbye!”

It is Christmas Eve and I am in the SUV with mum and we are driving to buy ice and wine. I am snacking on sunflower petals and shuffling my tarot cards. Today’s card is The Chariot. This means I have some hard work ahead of me. ‘Long and difficult’ are the words used in my tarot instruction booklet. We are driving home from the Big Bargain Bottleshop and we hit a bat with our car. Its leathery cloak is spread across our windshield and the sunlight is filtering in through its veins.

I am collecting all the dog hair on my bed so that I can spell out the word ‘SIN’ with all the fur. I am trying to decide if I will do it in cursive or capitals.  I am running eight minutes late for class because I am collecting the hairs. I keep asking myself, “Why did I shave my dog on the bed? Why didn’t I shave him on a tarp or something?”

I am reading a book but I can’t stop thinking about bread. I am getting distracted and reading the same line over and over again; “it is the only salvation I know,” and I am thinking, “That’s so true. What do we have in this world but bread?”

FUTURE

I will be lying in a golden Suzuki Swift, masturbating to robot porn. I will find the lack of narrative disappointing, but I will be intrigued enough to keep watching. One day my kids will all have sex with robots and they will think it is strange that I only had sex with humans. I will think, “How does a robot climax?” and then I will look down and I will be holding a dove in my hands.

I will stand on the couch with bloodied hands and reach for the ceiling of balloons, and I will squeeze the balloons one by one between my hands until they are all popped, and rubber stained red litters the floor.

I will wake up in the morning beside my mother and she will be crying. I will put on her socks and her shoes and help her out of bed. We will go to the supermarket and she will buy seven grapefruits and let them all rot in the kitchen. When she goes to sleep at night I will lay down in her walk-in wardrobe and sigh. The hems of her dresses will all move when I breathe.

There used to be a sugar cane field on the land where my house is built. One day they will knock my house down and build an Olympic sized pool there and the girls will sit around it in their Target bikinis. One girl will hand her phone to another; “Can you take a photo of me?” Pose, smile, “fuck I look pale, can you take another?” They will turn pink under the UV.

The married couple will be sitting across from me on the tram. The married couple will be sitting beside me on the tram. Everyone will be married. I will go home and ask my boyfriend for a baby. It will be the twenty-ninth time we have had the Baby Conversation. He will finally concede. Three months into the pregnancy, I will start leaking black and fleshy. I will find a tiny fingernail in my underpants. I will throw my messy undies in the trash and go to Sephora to buy green eyeliner.