My mother says, “Taking out the trash is a man’s job.”
2. She says, “A man shouldn’t be afraid to get his hands *****.”
3. I wonder if she left my father because he wouldn’t get his hands *****.
4. The first man my mother dated after the divorce was a garbage man. I still remember the gifts he would bring, the reclaimed objects that were always just a little too broken for my mother to love.
5. I have my father’s hands, a writer ever since I learned how prose could dribble and ooze from a page like the sweetest honey. I couldn’t wait to run my hands through it.
6. I have the eyes of my mother, ever since I learned the beauty of a man willing to get his hands *****.
7. I am still so shocked when I confuse myself with the garbage that I have become so accustomed to removing.
8. I am willing to love men who would hold me if only to take me to the dumpster when they’ve finished.
9. I am 19, and I am scared to tell my parents that I don’t want to get my hands ***** for a girl, but that I feel comfortable getting my hands ***** with boys.
10. I worry that my scent betrays me. That it rises like some profane incense from my plastic skin.
11. My father asks me, “Is there a girl you’ve been seeing? I can give you advice about talking to girls.”
12. He says, “You know, you could have any girl you wanted.”
13. I wonder if my father left my mother because he thought he could have any girl he wanted.
14. I imagine the look on each of their faces when I tell them about this part of myself that I couldn’t throw away. Look at me, still talking about it as though it belongs in a landfill. As though I belong with it.
15. I wonder if, next week, it will be their love placed delicately by the side of the curb to be caught in the teeth of a trash compactor. If they will mourn me like I once saw them mourn broken china. Valuable once, maybe, but now, beyond repair.