I knew right away I shouldn’t have wished that wish, wished first over my birthday cake when I turned five. I leaned over and ballooned my cheeks, but the candle flames never snuffed out. Like the wolf, I huffed and puffed and blew again. Hush! said my mother, wringing her apron. Hush. But I never gave up. When I was eight, I scrunched my eyes and hard-thumbed a wishbone freshly plucked from a chicken’s chest. The wishbone shattered like glass. When I turned twelve, the house asleep, I breathed my wish upon a star. The star exploded.
After I was wed, I freed that wish from its detention in a rusty tin box, gathered its fire and spark to forge a shank, a swagger of a dagger that would slice through skin and bone with such precision that blood would cleave. I felt its dense weight in my grip, heavy as light trapped in a black hole. I swashbuckled and brandished that wish, blinded by the reflections of wanting’s venom. When I listened, I heard only silence.
Now I am old and try again. I wish so hard, my own bones break and my skin splits, blood splashing out in all directions. I claw at the wish and it clings, parasitic, like mistletoe that begs for a kiss, then kills.
