Tiffany Promise
Death appears at my door with a fistful of roses. Plastic bags tug at her wrists, but she won’t let me see what’s inside. I imagine a heart-shaped box full of tiny bones, a ribbon of molted snakeskin, chocolate-covered somethings.
“Cherry,” she growls, pushing me inside the house, hard against the hallway wall. My dead mother’s collection of mounted antique plates rattles, but nothing falls.
“Cherry’s not my name anymore. That’s what he called me. I’m Alice now,” I insist.
“Okay,” she says, sliding her hand up my skirt. “No panties?”
“Just a thong. But not here.” I lead her to the kitchen. The floorboards creak with each step. The bare bulb flickers and sways heavily. It could be a noose for all I know, I haven’t been in here since forever. Not since that day. I consider locking the deadbolt behind us.
On the avocado Formica, she sets up a portable record player. Closed, it looks like a small animal’s casket. I had a rabbit once, until my brother’s dog nosed open its cage.
In front of the sink, she pulls a razor and shaving cream from one of the bags.
“What’s that for?” I wonder aloud, knowing I’d let her do anything.
“A shave and a haircut, two bits,” she says with a giggle, pulling my t-shirt up and over my head, tossing it to the floor. I think about how I won’t ever wear that shirt again. When he gave it to me on my last birthday—a ruby pentagram silkscreened on the cotton—it was snug against my then-rounded belly.
Biting her lip in concentration, she begins to shave me. I’m as still as the concrete birdbath in the backyard. As wet.
“Sexy,” she breathes, more air than word.
“Your turn,” I whisper back, taking the razor from her hand.
My fingers not quite as adept, I knick her six times. Our hair clumped together in the sticky kitchen sink is the exact same shade of strawberry. I’ll leave it there indefinitely: to gather dust, for baby mice to nest.
After laying a sheet on the floor, she fills plastic wine glasses with what looks like blood. I arrange a handful of small bones into a pentagram—could be bird or squirrel bones. Maybe rabbit? She lights heavy, long-wicked candlesticks. Someone turns out the light.
Together, we sit and drink, Depression Cherry spinning on the turntable. The room is a cavern of sipping and swallowing sounds, emptied out lullabies. Our hands spider across the floor towards each other but don’t make contact. Spider back.
She grunts almost inaudibly and licks her glass clean, tosses it. Because it’s made of plastic, it bounces without breaking.
Our clothes fall off and lump to the floor. Ants quickly overtake the pile, their fat bodies like tiny glittering fruits. I reach out and pop a few of them, smear their juices across the cruddy linoleum.
When she pushes me down and sinks her fingers deep into my flesh, I think about the bruises that will not have time to bloom. That never-ending feeling of aching that will be over in just a minute.
Snailing her tongue from my top to bottom, she kisses, nips, squeezes, slaps. The blood under my skin bubbles to the surface, but I keep my arms planted at my side.
Though I’m sopping—ready—when she tries to enter, my body resists. I’m a tricky lock, often a deadbolt, so she rubs her dick repeatedly against my clit.
“Call me Bunny,” I plead.
“Is it your first time, Bunny?”
“My first time doing this.”
She reaches down and twiddles her fingers rhythmically—some kind of secret code—until a raggedy flower blooms between my legs. It’s the tiniest of openings, but she shoves inside before I have time to rescind. There’s a sharp sting, a trickle of blood. Not the gush I was hoping for, but a beginning, nevertheless // In this old avocado-colored kitchen filled with so much shame
I’m sweaty, salivating, hungrier than I’ve ever been. I reach up to nip at her throat, but her Adam’s apple bobs just out of reach; I end up with a mouthful of air // I was a ghost that Halloween. Mother’s yellowed sheet over my head—asymmetric eye holes cut with scissors—was the only thing that fit over my stomach
She clamps onto my chest and sinks her teeth deep into my breast. The skin tears easily: flesh, fat, and useless milk ducts erupt // First, he split my lip—too much burn on his bread
The nerves of her solar plexus pluck against my teeth // Then: his fist in my abdomen. The deepest pulsating ache
Her right incisor slices open the fruitflesh of my stomach; I ooze into her maw // I didn’t know a person could bleed so much without dying
“Bunny,” she moans again, as I take her dick into my mouth. It’s lengthy, not like his: a dumb thumb-stump // Born still, still born
“No, not Bunny anymore. Something that starts with a ‘Z’” // I saved the slipped tissue in an old yellow Tupperware
“Zena Warrior Princess,” she says, a giggle-gurgle in her voice // An unfit resting place for something so perfect
“I’m pretty sure Xena starts with ‘X,’” I say. “But ‘Z’’s not right either. Call me Ouroboros” // I wish he would’ve killed me instead
“Ouroboros,” Death moans, her mouth filled with gristle // Because my heart will never return to my chest
The bones and hair are tricky to swallow, but washed down with mouthfuls of bile, they succumb. The fat sticks to our teeth, but soon we won’t have teeth anyways // This feeling of emptiness will never subside
“Finish me off,” I beg. “It hurts too fucking much” // I loved you I loved you I love you
Like snakes, we are all jaw—widening and widening—until there’s nothing left but a blood stain in the middle of the sheet //
Tiffany Promise (she/her) is a writer, poet, punk vocalist, chronic migraineur, and mother. She holds an MFA from CalArts and has participated in the Tin House and American Short Fiction Workshops. Tiffany’s debut poetry chapbook, Blood is Thicker than Blood, will be available in 2025 from The Chestnut Review. Winner of the 2023 Honeybee Prize for Literature—judged by Roxane Gay—Tiffany’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in CALYX, 45th Parallel, Narrative Magazine, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Epiphany, The Ocotillo Review, and elsewhere. A lifelong punk and horror fiend, Tiffany’s work skews gritty. Find her at www.tiffanypromise.com.