Thirteen

Everyone I have ever slept with has told me that my watch ticks too loud. On my twentieth birthday my boyfriend traced our initials in wet cement and I thought about wiping them out because they were crooked. I have scars on my fingers from putting out candle flames. My dentist pulled out fourteen of my baby teeth and asked me questions with his hand in my mouth. I wanted to save all of my baby teeth and make a necklace but I lost most of them. I have fainted twice: once in the shower and once during night class at NYU. When I was three my dad told me that John Lennon was dead and I sat down on the sidewalk and cried. When I was six Alison Heller’s mother wouldn’t buy me french fries from Jackson Hole and I sat down on the sidewalk and cried. Alison Heller’s mother calls me every three months to ask me where she is but usually I don’t know, and when I do, I don’t tell her. I never told my parents about the open container ticket or that the cops made my friends box each other and took pictures with their cellphones. When I was eight I cut my own hair and my mom kept the clippings in an envelope in her sock drawer until I asked for them back. Our dog Sadie died in the trunk of the car on the way home from the vet’s office and I dug her grave with a plastic shovel.