Madeleine De Pree is a 19-year-old undergraduate student at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She has appeared in five different publications, the most recent of which include The Thing Itself and Little Rose Magazine.
Peeling Teeth
When your adult teeth grew in, your mouth was too small to hold them. So the dentist had to pull eight teeth.
During this pulling, the dentist accidentally dropped two teeth down your throat, which you swallowed on reflex. I tell you that this is hilarious, because it is. You are missing a quarter of your adult mouth.
***
You think a lot about science and death. These are the only pursuits worth following: science and death. You tell me this while we sit in your parked car. And I disagree. What about art, I say. Doesn’t art matter. You tell me that art is too virile. Too nebulous. It is not wholly safe.
***
It’s dark again. We’re walking close along a sidewalk. You laugh. And I ask What. But you shake your head and smile, not answering. You point at my pink shoelaces instead. Double-knotted.
You laugh again. And again I ask why. You say Life. You say Life is a life experience.
***
You say Sometimes I feel ruined. And I ask How do you mean. I know what you mean. I see it moving around behind your eyes, not settling. But you won’t say it. So I think Fine. And I think Maybe I’ll just leave. But I don’t. And we stand outside by the water.
The air comes close and presses against us. It smells like cigarettes and nothing and lake.
***
I don’t think I care about you. You say this one night. Or if I do, it’s not in the right way. You say you are sorry. You know you are wrong.
I should say that I love you. That I feel like a naked grape. Peeled. With my nerve endings exposed to the air and everything stinging. But instead I put my hands in my pockets and shrug. And I think about your body. Cloth scraps. The feeling of pins.
***
Later that week you will buy a margarita. I will not see you before or after. And you will not have me.
But you will have someone. Someone and a salt rim.