In Worlds: A Writing Exercise Becomes its Own Story

Fighter

By Sophia Summerlin

In that world, we tugged hard at the teeth jutting from the bulls’ hooves. We lassoed floss and tugged hard hoping to acquire just one to jam into our ankles. The children there chased monsters, found voices in the night and cloaked the resonance under a cotton quilt. There, I would reach out and expand into the face of an angel. Stretch the skin of a deer over my bones. Veiled in another’s flesh, veiled across my chest, the ribs of the beast. I heave and spew when I surface. I spew all of my words into a focal nooOooOooOooo. The goosebumps arose.

In this world, I bite and pick at the fingernails of absolute strangers. I grab every hand, kiss every knuckle of the fleeting, furrowing faces and yip into their eyes when I am done. I get left at everyone's mother’s house to sign for the rum cake. I go home and smash my face through the spilling, spitting of gushing champagne and surface on the other side with just my nose poking out. Burning, burning, burning.

In another world, we the oaty gritty women, wrap hemp around the knuckles of our fighters. Running into the ring, dragging fresh delirious drunken men from their bloody spots to rinse their mouths. I am there sucking blood from one such man’s mouth. Spit it into a bucket and give him my saliva. Antidote? Yes. We run our padded fingers fast over the swelling muscles perfectly after having preened earlier, rubbing the cellulite from our thighs. In another world we are eating cottage cheese and blueberries on toast,

but when the oven broke, we reverted to bark. Pulled our teeth over the surface and pulled out blood and berry.