choke

when i was nine we played the game first at the far end of the field, out of sight of the nuns with the whistles nestled between their shapeless breasts (best for bouncing silver shrill drill calls and stopits, "hey you, line ups"), the group of us positioned closest to the park with our backs turned to the lesson plans contained within the books on teachers' desks, not so much imagined but taken from some other, bigger book of "you need to know because we said so", facing the toys that spun you dizzy and gave you butterflies, those a little outgrown. (i'd sit at the top of the slide with new long legs and go nowhere. it was a such a short drop to the bottom, even if i managed to scoot past the edge).

we stood positioned between scientific experiments and the playground with our own questions not answered in any textbook. today's query: what's on the other side of breathing?

polly went down first and came back hours later though mere seconds had passed. one of the girls timed it on her swatch, stopped counting when she stirred. a flutter of eyelash, then sitting up and picking dead leaves from her uniform jumper. watching her daze and normalize in color, we grew bolder. she'd gone where none of us had been before, though she didn't believe time anymore, or at least the time keeper. dahlia went next, but we had to help press, extinguish breath as she lay supine with her hands crossed over her still, narrow little chest like a corpse, looking as proper as the day of her first communion sans gloves, and those white satin dresses we donned that even then reminded me of coffin linings.

every vision brought back from the other side seemed important except to anyone who hadn't had it themselves. hyper narrative, lucid little dreams, petite second-long death hallucinations that didn't seem profound to anyone but those who'd lain momentarily dying.

my turn. i wrapped my own fingers around my throat. this wasn't hard. how many times had i thought i might be better off, that this world was a bad fit? maybe even a mistake? the broken glasses, the rosaries, peripherally recognized, and maybe even to jesus. daydreaming the inappropriate at mass, always halfway between knowledge and devotion, wondering if he saw the dedication or if the purity and whisperings of his name were wasted, the kiss at the foot of the cross, the ashes marking my forehead. the serpent becoming preferable to ignorance and thoughtless ceremony, lessons feeling more and more like neglected bosoms and textbooks that taught nothing of use. maybe i'd get some insight on the other side. the snake liked my language back. it tightened through my own hands, strengthening my own will, my crucifix hitting my sternum on the way down. down to the grass making way for my skull, the dirt refusing. a longer free fall than the playground could offer anymore. i came back quietly with no stories to tell except of black stars and tingling lips. a bruised tailbone. i wrote about it in my pink locked diary and forgot.

i saw the same thing every time years after, though. every time those fingers made their way to my throat and held me suspended with one strong hand between two decisions, literally every ounce of trust that you'd let me watch flowers unfurl against black like they did at recess while you watched them bloom on my cheeks, stay long enough to visit saints, peer through stained glass, and bring me back just as speechless as the first time, learning nothing but dreaming new and faceless gods.

you waited in that garden, knew the proper names of all the flowers exploding while i smiled, whispering to them with forked tongue. and i knew them just as well but i liked to hear the way you pronounced them, so i listened to you define them and tell me what made each one grow, as if i didn't know.

i wanted to wear you, tensing present around my neck. broken hyoid, that secret crush reserved for you alone. the one closest to the only place roses climb in the dark; the cherry of my throat. to bring blood to my eyes to fill the hearts they contained, to stipple the landscape between my freckles with tiny red dianthus barbatus. more of me fighting to be yours.
the beauty of it is that your first is your last. some things can't be broken twice. i only wanted to marry once. i was going to create the eighth sacrament, somewhere after taking in the holy body and saying goodbye to your own. deeper than matrimony. past rotted satin.
i thought, in your grip and you in mine, of how many other ways i could tell you "violently" than with a broken voice.
and i did.
and i did.
and you did.