I was delighted when the skin fit. It was cold when I found the roadside carcass on my
evening run, and after determining the blood had dried well enough, the guts dragged off by
some hungry beast eager to feast, I slipped the body over my own, punching my hands and feet
through the fur and into winter air.
I did not know what the creature was—coyote, raccoon, some swollen possum—just as I
no longer knew myself. I’d grown feral from years trying to survive as a woman, a wild
existence full of wound and want, body alert to predators, yet turning against itself as prey. I was
constantly hungry, hurting from the deprivation girls learn early on earns beauty, but when I
placed the new skin over my own, felt the warmth of fragrant fur, I stood straight for the first
time in years. I marched home with purpose, turning around to see my strong tracks etched in
ice.
Home was a compromise. An acquiescence. My boyfriend was the kind of mediocre man
so convinced of his greatness the world simply went along with him, never questioning his
likability or looks, which were unimpressive but the best I thought I deserved. The house was
always freezing, because I disappeared to please his need to feel virile despite the fact that most
days he waged imaginary wars on screen, bragging about virtual victories in real life.
That night I wore my new skin to bed. It rested between us like a shroud, but for the first
time in a long time I was warm enough to sleep.
The next morning he complained. This was not unusual—he did not like the groceries I
bought or how often I exercised to keep weight off, did not like if I neglected to shave or lotion
my skin until it shone like some strange taxidermy. Most days he forgot to wear deodorant or brush his teeth, smelled of onion and Mountain Dew, but he liked me doused in perfume that
smelled simultaneously of innocent baby powder and a desperate woman’s floral.
“What is that thing?” he asked when I returned from a morning run, though he did not
take his eyes from the computer screen. “It’s disgusting.”
“It’s new,” I offered, though the skin seemed ancient and wild.
“Well don’t wear it when we go out together,” he said before turning his attention to
strangers on the Internet. I promised, because we rarely went out, except for greasy pizza that I
never ate or when he played frisbee golf in the woods and I followed, looking deep into the trees
for paths to escape.
I loved my second skin, even if I did not love myself. Supple and thick, I could smooth it
until glossy. At night I rubbed my body, caressing myself with pleasure. When I was scared,
which was often, whenever my boyfriend raised his voice or his fist because his game did not
turn out the way he had hoped, or I did not put enough mayonnaise on his burger, or I forgot to
remind him to wash his own laundry, I hid inside my skin. It smelled of blood and musk, shit and
sweat, a pungent ferocity.
Soon I preferred this scent, preferred the feel of my growing body hair tangling with fur.
Each night I curled into the den of my skin, wildness cradling me all around, and dreamed of
meat and heat, the feel of my feet running through moss and mud, running as far away as I
wanted.
I began to crave what was rare. I ate large flanks, licked salted flesh from my fingertips,
sopped blood with bread to leave plates shining pure. Though I had lived a quiet life, now I
relished the sound of my stomach gurgling with the satisfaction of digestion.
“Will you be quiet?” asked my boyfriend over the sound of my stomach, of me flexing
my strengthening body, of me cracking bones to slurp out the sweet marrow. “I can’t concentrate
when you’re like this.”
I focused instead on feeding. I grew big and heavy, full of pleasure and prey, satisfied by
the skill with which I could identify a particular piece of meat in the butcher’s window or the
way I crept out of bed at night to howl at the moon while my boyfriend snored, the sheets sweaty
against his pale body.
“What is that smell?” he asked in the morning, pointing to the melting snow and mud,
viscera and bone in our bed. “What the hell is that?”
“I think a possum snuck in last night,” I said, wiping the blood around my mouth. “You
should be careful. I hear those things have rabies.”
It was snowing when he left. His technology cords coiled like serpents in his car’s
backseat. He left me the pots and pans because he did not cook. He left me the old couch,
sagging on one side from hours he sat pretending to hunt imaginary creatures.
He said he was afraid, which made me laugh and bare my teeth and claws full of flesh
and feces. He backed away slowly, shivering on the front porch.
I reminded him to take his coat, hurling it through the evening air like some dark bird of
prey. It landed like a body between us and he stared at me wide-eyed as I howled goodbye.
Inside I stripped my skin. Underneath my body hair was thick and coarse. I smelled of
sweat and blood. My feet were caked with mud from the many paths I’d forged. Muscle rippled
hard and capable.
I rested on the floor because he had taken the bed. It did not matter, I slept better on the
ground, curled around myself for protection. I lay there a long time, stroking my animal body,
smoothing myself until glossy, caressing myself with pleasure.
When I had my fill and the moon was high, I walked naked out the door to hunt.
Sarah Fawn Montgomery is the author of Halfway from Home (Split/Lip Press), Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir (The Ohio State University Press), and three poetry chapbooks. She has a craft book on unlearning the ableist writing workshop and developing a disabled writing practice forthcoming with Sundress Publications, as well as a collection of flash nonfiction forthcoming with Harbor Editions. She is an associate professor at Bridgewater State University.
Lost Balloon 