Dear Poison Ring,
She gave you to me as a present – for what? birthday? Christmas? No reason at all? – and I wore you with cautious, self-conscious pride and curiosity. Could I be this person now, someone with so much edgy style? (In retrospect, not as edgy as I thought. More Renaissance Faire than true Renaissance, if you know what I mean. Not that you were a poser, Ring, you were always just authentically yourself and very cool. But college-aged nerds do sometimes posture, and I may have misjudged how well I could pull you off … oh, pun unintended.)
Anyway, she gave you to me and explained how people in 1600s Europe used to wear them to sneak poison into someone’s dinner like chic assassins. And she probably said something about how I was that cool and lethal, that would have been just like her. You had a deep red (faux) stone and a tiny clasp. She filled your filigree reservoir with glitter. I wore you to the corner convenience store where you could buy dusty cans of soup and stale granola bars for too much money and where I sometimes would go when I couldn’t face the dining halls. No other students were ever there. No one was ever there except the suspicious cashier. I wore you, Ring, and you made me feel strong when actually I was crumbling inside.
Well, you know what happened next. I got back to my dorm room and you were gone. But do you know how I searched for you? There was lumpy, dirty snow along the sidewalk and I tried to use the light from the street lamps, but it was dark, and though you were big on my finger you were actually quite small, Ring. I couldn’t find you. Every time I walked there afterwards I looked. Nothing. I had never felt you slip away.
Did someone find you, Ring, maybe in the light of morning, maybe when the snow had gone? Someone find the glitter in your belly? I hope so. I tried to tell her how I had lost you, how sad I was, how I had searched – I don’t think she quite believed me. She kept saying it didn’t matter, that you hadn’t been expensive, as if that were the point.
Glitter on, you cool, wicked thing,
-e.