I'd like to tell her By Eirene Gentle

Hendrik Luup CC




I’d like to tell her

I hate you with the whole of my mouth, she said and I want to tell her to save it. For eating or she’s running and needs it to breathe. And though I love presents, especially from people I’d never expect, two mouths is a superfluity. Hers would just lie in storage under the bathroom sink. I’d probably forget about it. I want to tell her that we’ve never met, I don’t know her, she can’t know me and it’s a waste to hate with an entire mouth someone you’ve never said hello to, or please hold the door or would you mind if I scootch past. Scootch being one of those inoffensive words no one uses except to signal a very definite lack of offence to even a quarter of a mouth, never mind the whole thing. I want to tell her that my mother is dead and my brother too, I’m always on the verge and there’s no time to hate when people die. Even ones I don’t know, or like. I want her to understand even a sliver of a mouth can taste love, feel it on the tongue, a little soft, burred like a kitten. Has she ever been licked by a kitten and if she has, she might need a mouth. She should consider this before giving it away on a stranger she hasn’t otherwise said times are tough to because times are always tough. It’s never a wrong thing to say and you can say it with a quarter of a mouth, there’s still a chance then. Maybe they’ll hold you or pat your back. Maybe they’ll stroke your cheek or sit quietly by you as you cry it out. You need a mouth then or it feels like drowning. You need a mouth to taste the salt of someone’s tears. To say I love you even to no one at all.



​Eirene Gentle writes, mostly little, usually from Toronto, Canada.
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