she told me she
had dreams and grand schemes
of successfully murdering
her baby sister one day.
this lanky young girl
with gaudy motifs on her shirts
her chest still flat and face too flushed
from pre-adolescence.
this lanky girl no heavier than my little finger
telling me repeatedly
over and over again
how she would brandish her knife (from the kitchen
where i watched her just make me lunch;
spaghetti with mushrooms, tomato, chicken thigh.)
and stick it in the soft
jelly-like folds of her sister’s gut
letting the thrill of the first stab
course through her own scrawny frame first
then giving in to rage
two, three, ten and twenty
deliberate well-administered strokes
of her weapon of choice.
she says all this with relish
her wiry braces glinting
winking at me as though daring me
to be her partner in crime.
–Euginia Tan