by Rachel Lachmansingh
(Content Warnings: body horror, gore, body image issues, self-harm, disordered eating)
In total, there were four of us, or maybe there were eight, twelve, three-
thousand-forty-three. A multiplication of me. Did you see us? It started with me
pouring hot water straight onto my hands. The scalds burned circular,
like eucharist. We cratered on the bathroom floor and rain spat through a
hole in the roof, or maybe there was no roof, the house a mouth poised
to scream. It isn’t fair, one me said. Like applying Revlon’s Black Cherry,
she dabbed at my wrist as if I were a chapped lip. I wanted death, another
me cried, twirling a pair of haircutting scissors. The rain battered us all.
And the tiles: the tiles collapsed from under us like piano keys crying, like
dominoes shoved. Another me reached for the counter; I thought she was
grabbing paper towel but she held her fingers to her eyes and said tiny. I
was there. We all were. Kneeling on the disappearing bathroom tile like
it could show me the reflection of my ribs. I yearn for a saviour, another
me whispered, hawking her fingernails at another me. I dream of vomit.
Another me knelt, drafted hair from my face, said, I get you, you know—I
am perched on an olive branch, legs thrilled at the sight of bone. The
room silenced. A me collapsed in the corner, her body crimping until she
disappeared. Another me gazed into the roof’s wound and begged to be
consumed. A sparrow droned in the clouds; another me leaned over the
toilet, screamed. The sky was vague, sunless. We were all afraid.
RACHEL LACHMANSINGH is a Guyanese-Canadian writer from Toronto. Her writing has been published widely. She was a finalist for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize and longlisted for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize. She holds a BA in creative writing from the University of Victoria.
my past bodies walk into a room was edited by Conyer Clayton. It can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 6.2.
