Sometimes Softly Singing
There’s a crack running across the ceiling between the kitchen and the living room. The crack has been up there for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, the crack in the ceiling looks like a mouth. A mouth wanting to scream but the mouth can’t scream because it can’t open wide enough to let the scream out so the sound of the scream stays buried inside.
Sometimes, when I’m sleeping, in the dead of the night, I suddenly awaken thinking I’ve heard screaming but when I’m sitting up in bed there’s only an eerie silence mixing with the darkness of the room. But I stay like that for a moment or two taking deep breaths just trying to calm myself down. Sometimes, when I lay back against the pillows, I can hear the big knife all the way from the kitchen singing me back to sleep. Those are the nights I like the best.
The big knife sings all of the time. The big knife has many different songs. Sometimes, I hear the big knife screaming the words. Sometimes, I hear it softly singing. The big knife spends days and, sometimes, even weeks waiting in the bottom drawer feeling lonely and afraid. I know this is the way the big knife feels because we have always had this kind of a connection.
All of the electrical outlets in every room of the house have little faces with slits for eyes and tiny round mouths. The outlets always look like they’re screaming but they don’t ever make a sound. Sometimes, when I push a cord into an outlet I expect to see blood come gushing out. But there isn’t ever any blood and I always feel strange inside.
Bindweed Magazine 