only, I couldn’t help but think about it,
wonder how it was and why, I couldn’t shake it from my
mind –
and then one night while I was dancing in a club
the oldest sister kissed me. Long and hard. I felt this
sudden surge of something – overwhelming – grip me –
and lip-bitten, enthralled,
I realised that I wanted – needed – to kiss them all.
Back at the tall house later, the music thumping in
the kitchen, the sea silvery and cold outside the window,
I felt that urge increase,
I was in this sort of frenzied fog.
My brain was not a brain, it was a beating heart right at
my temples, pressing at the walls of me.
I went in search of them.
I’ve never felt desire like that before or since.
I went from room to room to room,
I climbed the stairs right to the top
and when I softly pushed the attic door,
I saw them
three beige snakes.
A knot.
Darling—
and all the want drained from me
and a nausea that I’m yet to shake
coursed through my body
and I ran.
I left the house.
And shortly after, left that town for good.
Do you think I really saw them, Ava?
It’s easier to say I’ve misremembered.
Or that I was in a trance –
but open any door inside The Big House and
you’ll see them too. They’re under every rock out in the
garden. Clear as day.
Want is such a slippery customer.
For instance, I want to hurt you, Ava.
Or wanted to.
That dream I had, the day your email moved my
phone across the table with a buzz –
