Be Careful What You Wish For
You wen collect da hair and fingernails he asks as his puffy white hair dances in the ocean breeze and you answer yeah, yeah I did, no worries but you worry don’t you no worries me if you never do it, you not going get what you want he scolds through broken teeth, his breath, rotting fish and seaweed, I stay know Tutu I wen get ’em you insist okay den put ’em on the table and you place upon the weathered picnic table in front of him the long ehu strands and clipped slivers you stole from her brush and wastebasket you sure you like do this, you know going be permanent he grins wide, his tongue blacker than the night surrounding you yes, Tutu I stay sure, I stay need her you plead and his milky eyes shine in the moonless night okay, Kawika and Tutu pulls the pieces of your woman, the woman who wants to leave you for another, and he weaves the words of your ancestors, casting this simple spell for you, remembering the days when he chanted for green fireballs to rain down on enemies, for the cursing of the womb of a rival chief’s woman, for blights cast upon the taro fields of hated neighbors, and he pities you, knowing you don’t understand, and his lips spread, his dark maw working, the money you already paid him burning a hole through the universe
Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer, living in Japan, has work published or forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, Reckon Review, The Hennepin Review, Cheap Pop, Milk Candy Review, Lost Balloon, Atlas + Alice, Fictive Dream, Maudlin House, Five South, and Cotton Xenomorph. She is in Best Small Fictions 2021, Best Microfiction 2022, and Wigleaf Top 50 2022. Read Hard Skin from Juventud Press and Kahi and Lua from Alien Buddha. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at www.melissallanesbrownlee.com.
