An Easy to Follow Ten-Step Guide
Written by Katherine Szwejbka
Content Warning: Stillbirth and Suicidal Ideation
Step One:
Set a plate onto the table. Set it down gently, so as not to send the sound reverberating around the
otherwise empty kitchen. Retrieve a knife from the silverware drawer. Allow your eyes to linger
just a millisecond too long on the dulled blade.
Step Two:
Open the doors to your pantry. Ignore the stockpiled groceries collecting dust on overfilled
shelves. Glance at two loaves of bread, both processed, pre-sliced, and encased in plastic snug as
a body bag. Instinctively reach for the white loaf, craving its starchy, cotton-like flavor. Pause.
Withdraw your hand. Choose the multigrain loaf instead, reminding yourself that the extra
nutrients are worth it. Wonder if you should have eaten more nutrients sooner. Immediately hush
the thought, but hear it linger.
Step Three:
Find the peanut butter. This isn’t hard; you know exactly where it is. Second shelf from the top,
left side. You’ve reached for this jar so many times your hand does the work by itself. Squeeze
the jar, thumb and fingers pressing into flexible plastic, then close the pantry door. Unscrew the
jar’s lid. This is all done on autopilot. It’s funny what the body can recall, what it can achieve on
its own. How it functions. And how it fails.
Step Four:
Spread even layers of peanut butter onto one slice of bread. Be thorough. Be precise. Leave no
inch of the surface uncovered. Keep going until only the crust shows, until the bread buckles
under its own weight. Clean edges. Smooth lines. This must be done perfectly. If you do
everything just right, the sandwich will be fine. Its fate is in your pale, shaking hands.
Step Five:
Before putting it away, dip one finger into the peanut butter. Place a dollop directly onto your
tongue. Repeat. Repeat again. Feel your mouth glue itself shut. Grind nuggets of peanuts
between your teeth. You insist on chunky peanut butter—it must be chunky, your husband will
plead to the grocery store clerk two minutes before closing, frantically trying to help the only
way he knows how, while you sit at home crumpled on the floor and crying into your knees, your
last purge leaving you void of the substance you now crave.
Step Six:
Reach into your refrigerator for a jar of raspberry jam, its glass sides sticky with congealed drips.
Spread the jam onto the second piece of bread. Approximately one minute later, stand over the
garbage can and meticulously scrape the jam off the bread. Try to convince yourself it didn’t
look like blood, thick with mucus and flesh.
Step Seven:
Throw the jar of raspberry jam into the kitchen sink. Instantly calm down at the sound of glass
shrieking against metal. Watch it shatter into dozens of jam-blood covered shards. Ignore the red,
wet mess splattered against white countertops like stained bed sheets. Go back to the fridge, this
time finding blueberry jelly. A safer choice.
Step Eight:
Once the sandwich is made, blueberry jelly and peanut butter and bread all nestled snugly
together, pour yourself a glass of milk. Ignore the aching in your heavy breasts as the liquid falls
from carton to cup. Take a few sips and force yourself to swallow. Cut your completed sandwich
in half. Cut those halves into halves. Slash those halves with diagonal lines, making eight tiny
triangles. Cut those in half, too. Slide the knife back and forth and back and forth until nothing is
left but sticky carnage spewed across the table. Shredding the bread, your therapist will later say,
is better than slitting your wrists.
Step Nine:
Throw out what’s left of the sandwich without taking a single bite, because you’re not eating for
two anymore, anyway.
Step Ten:
Leave the table covered in globs of food. Forget the glass of milk, now tipped on its side and
pouring onto the floor. Your husband will get home from work, sigh, and silently start cleaning.
Walk out of the kitchen to sit, alone, in the otherwise empty nursery. Cry.
.
Katherine Szwejbka (she/her) is a middle and high school English teacher who seeks to share the power of writing with her students. Her favorite genres to write are flash fiction, poetry, and one act plays. Her literary influences range from John Green to Sylvia Plath to Joanne Fluke. She firmly believes that we all have stories to tell, and is grateful for Epistemic for helping authors share their work! You can follow Katherine on instagram @the_lifelong_learner.