Eve's Daughter
Eve's daughter kisses the rind of earth with two small bare feet; suckling the ground as though connected—they are always connected. She is rail thin, but her breasts are two swollen orbs, blooming. Her one-hundred brothers braid holly root and weeds into her tangled hair, nubby fingers swishing across the tops of her freckled shoulders, and with their outstretched hands, they call, "Come little sister, come."
She was told, by her mother, to stay with her brothers.
Her tiny fingers are folded into the mangled flesh of her brother's callused hands, holding tightly. Following where they go.
At night, when the stars burn overhead, and the moon bloats to its chipped fullness she falls asleep to dream beside those same brothers. She dreams of cold rivers caressing her skin and birds flying overhead with a language that taunts her to try and understand. And when the sun burns hot, she wakes up to the sour smell of blood between her legs.
Eve is tangled with Adam—she doesn't understand.
She screams—she doesn't understand.
Eve's daughter puts leaves between her legs and curls her small body up like a wrinkle to avoid the pain. She imagines herself to be a shelled creature, the elongation of her spine, dozens of knots, coiled tightly together like rope.
Her tiny fingers are folded into the mangled flesh of her brothers callused hand, holding tightly. Not willing to let go.
At night she lies still and quiet; forgotten in the encampment of brothers who sleep beside her. She is a small shape amongst the sleep sounds—tussles of bedclothes, sighs and snores, or the echo of a muffled sentence, somewhere beyond her in the vastness of night. She watches the sky fold within itself—she watches it change and turn. The stars are curved like a cheek bone above her.
When she feels a hand cover her own, Eve's daughter makes no noise. She is silent and wide-eyed while one of her brothers moves on top of her. "Little sister," he croons; kissing her neck. His flesh is warm above her own, his hands taking her wrists, pulling them over her head. His ancles pushing her legs apart. The blade of his hipbones sharp against the baby-flesh of her stomach.
She whimpers, a sound that he mistakes for their playful games of yore. His hand covers her face, just a light draping of fingers over trembling lips. "Hush, little sister." He kisses her mouth, a soft tongue tickling her lips, coaxing her open until his teeth grind against hers.
He enters her with a strangled groan. She is reminded of the sound of an animal dying. He moves above her. She can feel him enter and withdraw from her body. There is a tightness, a pain, then the vacancy of pressure. Her wrists are still above her head, and as he pushes more of his weight against her she cries out. He hisses, dazed, his need like hunger, famished. He moves through her in circular motions, reminding her of the change of seasons. A pattern like the ever-changing sky above them.
She watches the stars; her throat can taste the light. Beneath her the desert sinks slowly into the impression of her frozen body.
When the sun burns hot again, he is folded next to her. He kisses her to baptize the morning, dry lips tattooing the rosy-warmth of her cheeks. They move through the day as though one person, never out of sight, never out of reach. His body frightens her, but his eyes soften her like a flower in bloom. His desire for her, illuminates her, despite her fear.
At night she waits for his touch on her. A hand enclosing before she breaths in to feel his weight on top of her. He touches her with firm hands and sucks at her breasts with hungry lips. He moves in waves over her, and she sucks at his shoulder.
When the sun rises again, she does not feel his kiss, and when she opens her eyes, another brother is lying on top of her; she can still feel him inside of her. Pushing him away she runs until she finds the brother who kisses her softly with the sunrise.
There is yelling, and fighting when he is told, and Eve's daughter falls into the grass weeping.
There is fighting, and then there is silence.
Eve's brother's circle her, so many faces now, so many roaring words above and all around her. There are now two dead bodies in the meadow and there is blood seeping into the earth. Eve's daughter begs the sky to let her go where her two brothers have gone. To close her eyes forever.
She is taken to her mother, where she falls asleep in arms that are unfamiliar; arms that she does not know. She sleeps in the sunlight, and then in the moonlight. With eyes cracked open she watches, unblinkingly, as the moon changes from sliver-thin to the bulbous fullness that brings her brothers to her with kisses, even as she shies away from them. Her bleeding stops and her belly swells.
She watches the sky turn, and in her cold hand she can feel the callused weight of her dead brother's hand. She is sick from it.
When dawn rises after her brothers' bones have yellowed in the meadow, she feels the ripple of pain stretch across her abdomen. Her knees wobble and she moan's aloud, feeling a wobbly shape slide out from her core. From a place where only they, her brothers, have touched.
Her woman-skin is hard and heavy now; and she learns to walk again with a stranger shadow beside her: a daughter.