by Natalie Angelone
I watch my slinky somersault down the stairs. Reaching the bottom he plummets to the side. I pick him up and wrap him around my body. I pull the perfect plastic ringlets tightly apart. I dance around in a heavenly tango until I hear a snap. The slinky retracts from my hand in a repulsive urgency and spins ten times around my body to release itself before slapping my other hand. Panic flows in my blood as I pick up his lifeless shape. His tangled limbs are locked like a pair of handcuffs. I start forcefully pulling and pushing the rings inside and outside of each other. “Don’t do this to me,” I growl. Four hours later my fingers are swollen and burn from the threading through each labyrinth of his death. I stop. The slinky is limp in my lap. I wish he would yell at me, tell me he’s mad at me so I could beg for his forgiveness. I wish he would hit me; coil into a python’s defense and strike me. But he does nothing. His silent wraps around me and chokes my muffled guilt. But then I think about how he hurt me. I stare at my hand that he slapped. Instead of seeing his body as a link of golden halos’, I see they are all hoops of fire that he made me jump through. I lean into all his circles of hell and whisper, “You slut.”