All the Words My Mother Fed Us

By Elia Karra

All the Words My Mother Fed Us

My mother hides her words in the food that she cooks. They make the bone broth bitter and they wilt the greens. She hides them in our clothes when she does the laundry, and we find them when we empty our pockets, barbed wire and shattered glass that pricks our fingers. She scatters them on the couch cushions, she plants them in the garden, she puts them in the cough syrup when we’re sick.

The night she came into my room with a fistful of words, I was asleep. She had my jaw in one hand, the words in the other, and I couldn’t see her in the dark. She shoved them down my throat and rubbed them on my gums and made me chew, broken letters sticking to my teeth. She had coated them in tahini and honey, and they tasted sweet even through all the blood.

Sometimes I’m thankful for it. It wasn’t that bad, I say, it wasn’t.

I found another one lodged in my pharynx today. Crude, crumpled between my flesh, aching to come out. It scratched and scorned, filling my mouth with iron, and I told myself it’s not that bad, because every now and then, the word I spit out is agapi.

I looked in the mirror and opened my mouth wide, reaching in with my fingers. It used to be impossible to do it on my own, but it’s only uncomfortable now. I’m used to it. I pinched it and it struggled. I pulled and it tugged, burrowing deeper, but there is no determination like that of a firstborn daughter.

When I tossed it in the sink, it writhed and tried to find its way back. It was a ball of silver and pink, smeared with my spit and my blood. A little thing. Too little to do any real harm, I said.

I didn’t unravel it to read it. I just washed it down the drain.

Elia Karra is an author and filmmaker living in Athens. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing and working on her fist novel. You can find her at eliakarra.com or on Twitter at @eliakarra.