by Megan Cannella

I read a book once about a woman who thought she was paper. The book is a light blue, with the word cat on the cover. At least that’s how I remember the vibe of the book, even if it isn’t the truth of the book. I want to send you the book. I think you would understand what it feels like to want to be paper and to be blue and to have the word cat on your cover. What an odd thing to say, but I think you know what I mean. I can’t find it though. I looked all the places I hide my favorite things, all the piles that are special and not just more clutter, even though they look identical to the clutter. That’s why they work so well for hiding. Maybe I already sent it to you after one of our up all night phone calls. Not one of the ones that ended in us stumbling into phone sex and then smiley, sleepy goodbyes. It would have been one of our calls that ended with the distinct but also muddled absense of phone sex. One of the calls where we left space for it but chickened out or wised up or more likely you just fell asleep in the middle of telling me not to hang up because you wanted to keep talking. You fill those spaces with weird body facts, like how you could regrow your foreskin someday if you just had the time and patience, which seem like reasonably small hurdles if this were actually your goal, but it’s just chatter. We haven’t had one of those calls in a while, and I am guessing tonight will be no exception since it’s already been a few rings and you haven’t answered. Did I already send you this book? Stories about the fragility and destructibility of a body to counter your attempts to regrow body parts? I don’t know any other potential paper people, so I’m not sure who else would have it if I don’t and you don’t. But maybe one of us does. If you’d just answer the fucking phone for once, I would know for sure. That’s a lie. You wouldn’t be sure. You’re not good at straight answers, which bugs the piss out of me. It makes it hard to talk to you about the now. You’re better at the potential. But I get that, the potential of new foreskin has to be more appealing than the dick you know and all the mistakes that have come with it. Answer. Answer. Answer. You’re good at the past too. You hang on to the good stuff, which is something I struggle with. But I suppose this is also why your mailbox is full, and I can’t leave a message asking if you have this book. You told me once that smelling farts helps to ward off memory loss or Alzheimers or something along those lines. Maybe if I had taken that advice seriously, I could remember who has this book or even what it’s called.

Megan Cannella (she/her) is a Midwestern transplant currently living in Nevada. Her debut chapbook, Confrontational Crotch and Other Real Housewives Musings, is out now: https://linktr.ee/mcannella. You can find Megan on Twitter at @megancannella