WHAT IT TASTES LIKE

Allie. I never really liked your name. I would have preferred to call you Alyssa. I liked that a little better. You told me no, that’s what Ryan called you, so I called you Allie and I didn’t really like it.

They are suddenly calling you Alyssa now. I have half a mind to tell them you wouldn’t like it, but it’s probably not relevant. Not a lot is relevant now.

My left hand is cuffed to the chair and I’ve bitten all the nails on my right hand. I can taste you, Allie. In the crevices of my nails. Allie, what a strange thing, to taste you right now. What a disgusting, beautiful, tragically intense thing. After the blood, the snot, the tears, to taste you.

I keep biting. I bite hard, and deep. There’s a bit of blood now. I’m worried the police officer is going to think that it’s your blood, that I hit you more than once and got your blood on my hands, he’s already asked me about this and I said I hadn’t, it was only once, but now there’s blood on my hands. I suck the blood out. I can’t taste you anymore, Allie. I’ll never taste you again.

Allie, remember when you told me to stop biting my nails? I think of this now because I don’t know what else to think of. You said it was a bad habit. I said that if I quit biting my nails, I’d be perfect, and nobody's perfect, and I did that thing with my shoulders and palms and corners of my mouth that you love, that you loved. You laughed, Allie. You used to laugh, Allie.

Nobody's perfect, Allie. I never liked your name.