We open our mouths. Drop our bullets on our tongues. Taste the metal and three of us cough up powder. One of us nods. All of us nod. And we bite. We bite our bullets with our back teeth, listen to the sounds of our sprouting bones cracking within our gums. We bite to strengthen our jaws. We bite to quiet our laughter. We bite to practice how to warp our words, how to tuck them within our bullets. We are girls in lace cradling bullets in our palms. Bullets stolen from our fathers’ guns, from their safes; souvenir bullets our grandfathers kept from the wars they relive in their sleep. We remember the stories of our grandmothers and mothers and wonder where their bullets are now. Two of us turn away from the circle, take aim at their targets in the distance. Four of us turn. Seven. Ten, taking aim with puckered lips. We aim at those who tell us to hush. At those who tell us to be good little girls. Pretty little girls. Silent and still little girls. All at once, we fire. We fire like our grandmothers and mothers. We fire our bullets encased in our words and wait for the sounds of impact.
Avitus B. Carle (she/her) lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her stories have been published in a variety of places including The Commuter, Moon City Review, Fractured Lit., ASP Bulletin, and elsewhere. Her debut flash fiction collection, These Worn Bodies, will be published by Moon City Press in November 2024. She can be found online at avitusbcarle.com or online everywhere @avitusbcarle.
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