this is how my intestines fell out: i found a hole in my stomach. i could see in that small misshapen and sticky oval an off-white and pink rubber bulge. this does not happen everyday, an off-white and pink rubber bulge poking out of one's stomach.
i immediately began looking for answers on the internet. Search terms I used included:

rubber stomach hole worms
oval with things poking out stomach
why does my stomach hurt hole what pink bulge oval explanation
history abdominal holes feminist
michael jackson cause of death

i thought maybe if i opened the hole a little wider, i would have better search terms. michael jackson died of an apparent homicide. acute propofol intoxication, aka magic milk.

i began to finger the bulge. i could press it back in. it felt foreign, like adulthood. my nails were long. i did not want to puncture this bulge in case it was not actually rubber. or worms. i also do not own a brush with which to wash my nails. to have rubber bits under my nails, this would have disturbed me. a propensity to swear.

anyway. you know what happened next. i met a boy. it was awkward, but on our second date, i asked him to gnaw away the hole so we could get a better look. this was preferable to watching anything on the television. we had already discussed our childhoods.

he took this as an indication that he was going to get lucky. he tried to lick my mouth. look, i said, i just want to have better search terms for this hole in my stomach. do you have intimacy problems? if you were interested in me, you would gnaw away the skin surrounding my hole. i mean, i am ready to gnaw on you. this is what people do when they like each other.

i meant it. i looked at his skin and knew that if he ever asked me to, i would eat his wounds.

he was reluctant. he had never gnawed on anyone before, and he wasn't sure he was ready. couldn't we just take things slow and poke at your stomach for a while?

what an idiot.

after i made it clear that this wasn't going to work out unless he was willing to put 110% into eating my stomach for me, he made an earnest attempt. i lifted up my shirt so that the hole was exposed, we nodded at each other, and he moved to his knees. he began lapping at my hole like a kitten, tonguing the off-white and pink bulge.

of course it wasn't enough. i had made it very clear that he needed to use his teeth. we were gonna make this work, we just needed help. so, we went to therapy to get help for his inadequacies. i thought it might have to do with an ex-girlfriend or maybe a repressed childhood event.

while we went to therapy to address his fear of hole-gnawing, my hole grew bigger. it began to look like sausage casing squeezing out of a glistening red round hole. it was somewhat yellow around the edges. it was clear this had nothing to do with my mother's aloofness or the incident at the pier.

what an idiot.

my intestines were coming out, that's all.