Online Itch by Jessica Schouela

I’VE always been an itchy person. I remember being in Florida, in a weird hotel with my family, thinking that the sheets were dirty; that if I got in bed, lobsters would crawl all over my legs and on my belly and chest. I kept my legs shut that night so that the lobsters wouldn’t find their way into my vagina but at the same time I was rubbing my legs on each other trying to scratch one with the other.
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Dat couldn’t stand the sight of his father speaking so intimately with another woman. It had been only eight days since they arrived on Wake Island, a small land mass that stretched just over two miles from every shore. Ten days since the fall of Saigon. Eleven days since the nine year-old boy felt the warm blood of his mother caress his face like the residual mist from a passing monsoon. He reacted by crouching down and cupping pieces of brain matter in his trembling hands. Without looking up, he saw the smirks, heard the laughter of the murderers who casually walked down the street. Dat didn’t have the courage to face them. He kept his head down and wondered where his father was.

            Hands
                                                                                      and
                        Necks

                                                                        wrapped
                                   With
                                                            forget-me
                                                -knots
                                                    not
                                    With standing
                                          to stand
                                     With           or without-me
    Sol
In       itude
          ice                   in ice

I’m an illustrator. I use pencils a lot. I like the way they feel on the paper, and the way I feel the paper on them. It’s like having fingers that are made of graphite with all my own nerve endings in them. They’re a bit like people too. With use they gradually expire and wear down. Although I suppose if you left one for a thousand years and didn’t use it it would just be fine. A person wouldn’t.