the imprints of your hands are still on me. i wish they would wear off aurora writes. she folds herself together, trying to get smaller, more compact, impenetrable, harder. her face squishes up. it isn't working. she sighs. she's too big to ever be small, or tiny. to be considered child-like. men stare at her all the time, in the bookstore, in line at the movie theatre. and it isn't because she looks like a school girl or her skirt's too short. she wants to be more like a child, though. to play in freshly mowed grass. draw with crayons. pretend she is a beast who lives deep in the woods, her lean body covered with dirt, her hair matted and snarled. instead of being big and awkward, black hairs poking from her sheer stockings. lipstick carefully lined. broken-hearted. she writes spells on bits of paper; curses and hexes. binds the pieces together with string. puts the curses in her mouth and swallows them, her tongue dry against the roof of her mouth. they congeal inside her, tearing at her belly, giving her ulcers. but her heart is her own. she buries love spells beneath a willow tree. weep for me she says. her heart is her own but it is torn, ragged edges dripping blood. he threw her cowboy boots away.

    she could not declare her love; she could not touch him. he walked always ahead of her. she wanted to speak, but her lips were sealed, sewn shut. he stitched them together himself. with butcher thread and an embroidery needle. don't tell he muttered, drawing the thread. she shut her eyes and bit her tongue. she could not wet her lips. her mouth dry, taught. she got scissors out of the kitchen drawer one afternoon. sliced through the thread, her lips coming open, gasping i love you! he hears her, her words spilling. her blood spilling, pouring out. she sets them free. no more secrets. he leaves her. now she will no longer say his name, even in secret.

    her curse of him she buries with the love spells she made to bind him to her. she cannot swallow it; it is too much poison. she digs a small hole and presses the bit of paper deep into it. before she covers it she notices a gleam of blue peeking out from the soil. she pulls it a loose, a deflated helium balloon limp in her hands. she puts it in her pocket and seals the earth with her hands. stamps it firmly down with her foot. walks away, her long legs stalking. she always walks away.