The Method

Tyra Douyon

Sometimes I go weeks without it. It’s fine at first, almost enjoyable, because I’m not
so observant. But then my hand starts shaking, like it’s reminding me it can be used
for more than writing grocery lists and touching him under the table. I wake with
tears brimming my eyes, a needle stuck in my throat; a quiet warning to get up before
the cactus, never needing water, dies in the sun. I hear whispering as I turn my
shower head into red clover, when my eyes wink for the last time before sleep, after I
crack my back into grade school origami. A million voices howl: cotton, fire, cello, fist,
everything, mother, angel, whiskey—I can’t help but cup my hands with intent to my ears.
I trip into them, the angry mouth of a double-dutch rope. By the end of the hour I
hack them down with child scissors playing hide and seek with my tongue. Finally,
after fasting three days for silence, I sit and write about grocery lists and touching
him under the table. We laugh like the eyes of animals waiting to be slaughtered. And
I die with them every night. Naked. Standing on my head.