Those little toes curl on the linoleum, since long ago your legs had grown too long. They, if they could, would giggle, and they'd wiggle as they hid from your eyes. You imagine your toes as replicas of that little child you had been only a decade ago.

Your legs, and feet, would swing wildly back and forth and hummed, sitting on the toilet, your big-boy (daddy called you his big girl) Pampers training pants on the ground. Then you didn't know you could hang them about your ankles and stare at the inside bridge of your underpants. Fingers would clutch the sides of that potty, cold against your bottom, but clinging tightly. You'd rock and sway on the potty and sang innocently twisted versions of twinkle twinkle. You don't know much at two.

The roll unwinds, and later you stand, pull your jeans and panties up; button, zip, and buckle. Of course you twist the handle, and your little toes giggle as the toilet gargles.

At three you still couldn't reach the sink, so across the linoleum your little feet would scuttle, then help you drag back the blue stool that you would climb atop. One day you could reach the sink, and twisted the handles, always the cold one first because you did not like to get burned after Tuesday, eight years ago. It hurt. And you cried.

Your right hand reaches for the Zest soap; you turn it between your palms and rub, rub. It tasted bad. Momma stuck the bar in your mouth when you were six, and told you to eat.

You wash for seven minutes; you timed yourself in the clock when you weren't staring at the counter top. Daddy's stubble grated it, and momma's lipstick, concealer, and makeup was splattered on top like she was your bathroom's native modern artist. She stopped cleaning when you were seven.

The water stops when you tell it to, well, when you make it stop. Daddy didn't. Mamma wouldn't. You turn around and scuttle across the linoleum. Your toes, your mini-yous, giggle and play. You hear them talking like you were when you were eight. You had known it all, and drew the best pictures in class when you weren't supposed to. In the bathroom garabage, somewhere at the bottom, you knew they were still there. Underneath the nylon, toilet paper, ear-wax covered q-tips, and pads spilling out onto the floor where you watched Daddy dump the pieces.

Your left hand grabs the brass handle, and you twist it ninety-seven degrees. You've measured the distance the stub on your second left knuckle, the one next to the one men have always kissed on movies, travels. You did it when you were nine.

The door pushes out. Air rushes in. You spent ten minutes in that bathroom. Daddy is waiting next in line, just out of range of getting whacked with the door. You are frowning. Daddy grabs your shoulders and pushes you aside, as he does momma occasionally. The door slams shut and you walk eleven steps into the nearest room, your room, which was crowded with twelve big brown boxes and thirteen pictures of you smiling. They're all professional pictures, and you have burns from being shoved in the oven after the originals came back.

She keeps them in your room right next to that cross with the dying man on it. Momma worshiped his name, but you couldn't hear it. He is not for you, Momma keeps saying. You have been bad, and He is there to save you from your wicked ways. But He is not for you.

You cut your finger off at nine, because you knew you had to be bloody like the man for him to listen. You look at your hands with shame. Four fingers. Four. Four.

You died at four.