Hello Kitty! How long has it been since you placed that bow there, right by your ear where they opened your skull and poured in the sugar for your saccharine eyes? And you thanked them with a bow, arms straight, hands on your thighs, fingers just touching.

Kitty, your sister Mimmy talks trash behind your back. She wrinkles your favorite kimono, steals sheets of rice paper from your desk. Don't you think it's strange that she's never had her own TV show?

How is this for a list of accomplishments: lunch boxes, hairbrushes, erasers, t-shirts, bed sheets, fingernail polish, stickers, underpants, jewelry, notepads, toothbrushes, wedding dresses, luggage tags, pencils, picture frames, coin purses, computers, cars. Every 3.67 seconds someone in the world speaks your name; every 4.32 seconds, someone dies.

Do you ever strum your pink guitar late at night, Kitty, and imagine yourself with black eyeliner, black lipstick, black hair tinged purple at the ends? Do you ever wonder how sweet the point of a knife feels as it slices skin, whether your blood runs thick and sticky as syrup?

Hello Kitty! How often have you kissed the green wound?

Ann Walters lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in Wigleaf, Juked, SmokeLong Quarterly, Quarter after Eight and others.

To link to this story directly: http://wigleaf.com/200905hk.htm

Detail of photo on main page courtesy of colodio.

Read AW's "The Voice of Love" from the archive.

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