jieun sharon kim

"you're fat! i can't look at you anymore."

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he finally decided to confess. he had been broke down by the broken pockets in all of his broken pants. leaking in broken drips, pennies, lint, wrinkly pieces of receipts. such tiny bits run through the cycle over and over, the faint print is willfully mistaken for old letters written, folded, unfolded, folded, worn,

worn utterly, he told me how he used to be the best dressed man in town. not the best dressed, maybe, he amends, but certainly the best-moustached, with moustaches that you would hardly believe, he glissades from happy pride to melancholy in one beautiful swoop as he says, but i didn't stick with just moustaches, as i should have, and got too ambitious for my happiness,

to make a long story short, i say, did you kill her? with my unhappiness, first at her, an anger so trivial it washed away with the first lap of remorse, and then with my unhappiness, true and deep-seated at myself for letting that first unhappiness mean so much more than what did mean much more and now, i have no moustaches because nothing makes you happy when you are unhappy.

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or wait.
it was that he looked exactly as i did imagine.

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i explained to mr. poirot that i could not stop tee-hee-ing and wriggling.

he looked at me solemnly

while my teeth showed itself in a fearsome way,
trying to imitate how i was grinning uncontrollably;
as if tiny fat cherubs were fluttering even tinier wings

as they labored to push up and out my mouth.

these almost invisible workers get paid pulp petals

by the hour/pinay!pinay!/undressed and underused.

i couldn't figure out, i said to him

who now looked very solemn indeed,

why and how
and who for what got them to go and do;
and where the magical words tada!lada! to command them 'push' !

(for they have no ears)

and it was only a thought from him that started it all, 'i miss you' !, and---yes?

just stop, he said, just stop.

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he smokes a tiny russian cigarette

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he has a gap between his back two teeth
the flattest broadest ones
he can't go to the dentist
since no one thinks about his teeth
and he exists only as no one thinks him into being

but no one does think of him eating his cup of chocolate
and it is so thick and so present
in a way the despised english tea is not
that a black bite wedges itself into where the gap is
and makes it stop being
and it hurts because it's not where it's supposed to be

and the dentist will not will him into being
since no one will
and so i reach out and tell him to do as i say
and let him drip agonized saliva onto my hand
without saying a word, i take it

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the thing was
he didn't look like i expected at all

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eggs,
wax,
clothesbrush.

'ew', she said.
i positively shrink away from waxy eggs.
the slippery smell and jolly idols. 'open my closed door", he said, crestfallen, trying.
'i will excuse you for your foreign ness.' she replied promptly. and then closed her eyes, not even pretending she was trying.

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'imitation, mon ami', he said

bewildered, bewildered, took my breath away
and then led me out of the room

'excuse me to derange you', he continued.

i obeyed, devoured with curiosity.

'do not be deranged, mon ami. an action without method which i deplore!' he went on.

i laughed and took the chalk and stretched out my hand for the clothesbrush. a laugh half-filled with derision.

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eggs,
wax,
clothesbrush.

'ew', she said.
i positively shrink away from waxy eggs.
the slippery smell and jolly idols.

'open my closed door", he said, crestfallen, trying.
'i will excuse you for your foreign ness.' she replied promptly.

and opened her gray eyes wide.

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