Hangnail

There's a hangnail on the bottom of my right pinkie toe. Mama, my step-mama, says it's a blessing from god.

She drinks clear liquor from a red chalice, sobbing and sighing, humming to the beat of an imaginary drum.

She whispers sweetly to no one,

"Come here, my sweet baby girl."

Mama don't realize that I'm Sammy, not Sally, and pulls me to her.

She gives me medicine that tastes like candy and fireworks. I cough it up, along with the nasty "water", but she shoves it back down.

She takes out a knife and cuts that hangnail...

Off.