Second Language

She tucked the corners of her face in and went back out into the world, knowing the red and blue trail her guts were leaving in the street behind her would repulse at least some people.

Eerily, the standout blue veins in her neck and at her temples made her look vaguely like an aerial map of Siberia. Even though in this place she knew the word “Siberia” did not signify, somehow she took comfort in how Siberian her neck and temple veins looked and walked with a slightly straighter spine, though she noticed people she passed by looked at her with disaffected latte pity. But to her she made a lot of sense. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had been Lithuanian, had survived winters, had been sold to Russians, had died in white and cold and poverty, and so a vast white expanse with rivulets of black and blue was a concept she understood. Didn’t land look that way to birds on great journeys? Birds had outlived the ice age. Perhaps my body is like a map of a place seen from the sky. She looked up. Then she returned her gaze to the faces of the pretend pretty American city.

Yes, she had a vague understanding regarding the fact that her insides were visible on the outside, and how not the custom that appeared. But what were exposed capillaries and gut entrails dangling from a girl’s midsection compared to the fat wallets of billionaire businessmen jutting out from the asses of their fine suits, or the violently painted lips of women