In my right hand, a nail clipper.
Grasping the sides of my big toe firmly, I bring the clipper down, tweeze the white skin over the ball, shredding it.
No callus today; that was several weeks ago, before I fell into the passion of cutting apart my feet. If I didn’t bathe first to swell the skin there would be nothing to grab.
Now I’m bearing down on fragile flesh that tears, layer by layer, until all the white is gone and a bubble of red oozes out of the cross-hatched opening.
I ignore this first sign of success; instead re-angle my foot. Lightly, gently, I turn it, peering at the skin that is now rough and ridged, pleased to see I have created more surface to grab, cut, make smooth like it was before the bath.
Pinhole becomes hole; hole opens to maw: tiny lips gape.
My heart flutters; I am excited by the ripped flesh, the view it offers into my body. I wish to cut all the way to bone, but I’m scared; I already know no one does this but me.
Fascination turns to betrayal: The new mouth sings pain so I squeeze it hard, relaxing as the blood crests, runs, down the side of my foot, onto my leg.
I shift the clipper away from the big toe, down to the fleshy pad of the foot. Jaws open, snatch, close, pull, tear, bleed.
Pain. Not just my foot, but outside that locked door, down the hall, past my room, my sister’s, into the living room with brown shag carpet and plaid wallpaper. In there the TV lives and my father snores.
Both feet are clean, raw, bandaged. Dead flesh clings to the clipper, the sides of my fingers: fat wormlike chunks I ignore now that they are off my feet.
The bathtub swallows my secret.
When I was 14 years old, I cut my feet daily for about six weeks. It scared me: how the very idea came out of nowhere, the compulsion, the relief, the shame. It wasn't until a friend bragged about her calluses being so thick she could stand on a hot Arizona sidewalk that I found the courage to stop.
by Susan Rich, (c)2014 All Rights Reserved
