The Milkmaid
by caitlin macrae
People who don’t know better like to talk about how well you’re doing. Super happy, you know, things are going great with the band, and then of course, there’s the milkmaid. Trapped in my mouth, hot and sticky like summer, the milkmaid. This is the thing nobody plans on when you keep such big secrets, no exit strategy 
for dealing with the friends you share when things get weird and bad and over. There is no option but to take in all information with a very calm face, secretly suppressing quease. This option involves focusing on neutral images, Scandinavian pastoral scenes with smiling children and placid cows and grass and big wooden milk pails, memories of mom’s old ice cream maker, a huge wooden contraption with a big hand crank used to grind ice and salt and cream into a completely different thing.
And, hell, I bet she comes home at night with sprinkles in her hair, the smell of cream and ice in her whole body, radiating from the inside out, vital organs glittering with colored sugars, a woman born of diabetic dreams and children’s birthday parties. Melting and edible. There is no getting around these thoughts; they are not kind. She is probably kind, kinder than I am. But maybe if she knew what I know she would write her own short stories, with titles like the bookmaker, vague and plotless things about a brittle, glowering girl who should know so much better but can’t turn off the thinking. But maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’s not that kind of girl.
