knife

I had this knife and it was perfect. It was sharp and it was dangerous and when I was little my Dad told me not to play with ones just like it. But I found it anyway. It was like my kirpan, and it was everything.

I used it to cut vegetables, threads off of my skirt, my thumb once when I was showing it to someone else for the first time. I flung the edge against a brick wall, just for fun. I launched it into the same wall in anger. I spent hours whittling a stick into a match just looking for the perfect carve. In the end I found nothing but empty air in my hands.

I noticed the blade becoming dull. Desperate, I took it to the knife-sharpener, and he fixed it, for a few days. It didn't cut the same way, though—couldn't. My celery and carrots became nothing but strings, my hems destroyed and unraveled. I didn't dare slam it against anything, but I wanted to. I wanted to see if it could cut stone. I looked for sticks to carve but the edge couldn't even tame wood anymore.

I'm worried now. I'm having trouble slicing marmalade. But I don't want to let it go. No other blade will gleam quite like this one. Other knives won't let me throw them as far away as possible, stick them deep, deep into the earth, cut through a cloth just to hear that sound it makes when it rips in half.

In the end, nothing I have stays sharp for very long. The harder I try to keep things like they were, the easier it becomes for them to ebb. Into butter knives.