I get so tired of the questions. How can I tell you what's wrong? How can I express how I feel? This story, it's not mine. Not this time. And I don't want to talk about it. What can I say?

Do you really want to hear? And is it because you're worried about me? About her? Or is it ghoulish requests for details you can shake your head and clutch your pearls over?

I won't parade her barely mended soul in front of the world to explain my tears. They're not for me. I will not tell a story that is not mine.

So I'll stay quiet, until we find out how the story ends.

I won't ask that you forgive my silence, but that you respect it.

There used to be a tree in the backyard. It fell two summers ago, struck by lightning. We chopped it up, used it for firewood in the winter.

That stump, I used it to have tea parties with the fairies that lived in the honeysuckle. Little acorns for cups, leaves for plates, while they wove flowers into a crown for me. Said I was a princess, and they loved me. I wished so bad I could fly like they did. Wished a bite of leaf would fill me up, so I wouldn't be hungry anymore. Wished I could live with them, and smell honeysuckle all day long.

They said I could, if I listened close, and did as I was told.

So I went down to the creek, all dressed and laid down.

Now I can fly, and I'm not hungry anymore, and there's honeysuckle curled around my headstone, and it smells so sweet.

Cold marble under my hands, the reflection of a person I don't remember on the wall. I've looked so hard, for a part of me I thought you'd like. Something you could want.

But all I ever found was bigger tits, smaller waists, new faces, empty eyes, and the thrill of a chase I don't give.

Not even good enough to chain up, devoted enough to stay with no bindings, alone, in a bathtub long gone cold, waiting until you tire of the chase, and long for the meager pleasure I will always willingly give.

Never my name that falls from your lips, never my flesh underneath yours, never any demands on me, never commanded to strip and serve. I can hear you, and the newest faceless girl, one room and over, while I wither and wrinkle, alone, and envy the strangers you desire.

That was my nickname, did you know that? My grandpa called me that, as long as I can remember.

"Hey hey! Come here little outlaw, and hug my neck."

Because of my name, you know? I didn't get that, till I was older. Just thought grandpa gave funny nicknames to all of us.

I wonder though, if you know my middle name. If you remember? My favorite food? Favorite color? Do any of the parts of me that can't be seen, can't be touched, do they matter?

I dunno.

It was a good nickname though.

I remember, back when hungry was a permanent feeling, what it was like anytime anyone put food in front of me. Even saltines with peanut butter on them, they felt like a feast. A treat. Gourmet. Delicious. Spam? Like filet mignon to a small, empty stomach.

I think, sometimes it's like that with kindness. I spent a lot of years with a man that liked to be mean. It made the times he was less mean, it made those times seem like kindness. I feel like I've learned to take kindness, real kindness, as more than it's intended, now. I forget that sometimes people are just nice to be nice. It doesn't mean they care, not in any sort of intimate way. A man being nice to me, being kind, it doesn't mean he loves me.

I need to remember that. It's not love, even if it's nice. I ought not be so silly, to think that way.

At an imaginary breakfast table, doing a word jumble while you drink orange juice.

I feel the need to apologize for the parts of me that are put together wrong.

The parts that should be soft are hard, and the hard parts are too soft.

I'm put together wrong, stitched up with worry, and I can't show skin.

Frankenstein made me, and I'm jealous of all the people that aren't inside out.

People that aren't stuffed with words, and have beautiful skin.

They're all put together right, and I'm sorry.

Sorry for the jumbled words across the breakfast table.