Hunger pangs

Have you ever been really hungry but had nothing in your house to eat, so you just periodically check you cabinets, knowing that they're bare? That's basically the story of my love life.

the nest the heart the home

An octogenarian, a psychic, she'd met at Starbucks came to Thanksgiving dinner.
He told me that his favorite ex-wife threw a grandfather clock at him. It was an antique, an heirloom, and she hurled it at him as punishment for waking her from a nap.
He told me that he knew all about lesbians. He'd come upon sobbing bull dyke, and they'd danced until dawn. He said that he was the first man she'd kissed with tongue.
He told me that a woman named Cassie was writing a book about him. He wanted to fall in love with her because he had a soft spot for mean women who spent his money.
He read my cards (all queens and swords) and told me to keep doing what I've always done. It'll work out eventually.
He told me that my eyes are windows and I must resist the urge to look away.
He said he'd teach me to use my energy to read people. He said I had that power, my windows told him all about me.
He asked me to take his picture.
He told me that I am an artist and a teacher and that I have a scar on my right knee (I do).
And that's about when he set the carpet on fire with his napkin. The hostess's boyfriend put out the fire, and we waited outside for the smoke to clear before coming back in for pumpkin pie.

Gewehr

If love is war, this love is World War II. Her heart is a Nazi officer, stationed in this relationship to guard mine, to be sure that it does not escape. Her heart kills mine slowly, brutally, relishing in its suffering, nearly starving it to death, feeding it only enough to subsist on. A scrap of caring every few weeks, a morsel of attention here and there. My heart is frail. His ribs are showing. His entire spine is visible. He is shrinking. He curls up alone and shivers himself to sleep. Her heart threatens mine into submission, beats him bloody, laughs in his face. Her heart takes away every comfort, makes mine forget what life outside of this was like, makes mine believe that good days could exist in this place, makes him forget that there is something outside of this. But most importantly, her heart keeps mine alive, doles out crumbs of hope to keep him going, makes sure he doesn't die before someone gives the command.

What I've learned in school

1. Philosophy isn't so hard. Anyone who's seen a dysfunctional relationship can understand Hegel's master/slave dialectic.
2. I am an emotional whore. I love too much too easily and give it out to the most undeserving customers.
3. If I were a well-adjusted adult, I would just develop a drinking problem and get over it.

A bouquet of lavender between friends

I buried my mind 

in her body and left 

it there to rot or 

maybe to blossom

She sunk her broken 

heart in my warm waters

and never asked for it back

never spoke of it at all

We went on breathing

in each other's vanilla

and being mistaken 

for sisters like always

A girl washed up onto the shore

It was not until then that I realized that nothing she'd ever said was to be taken at face value. She wasn't killing herself, she wanted to drown the part of herself that I knew, the part that loved me.
I'd been reading her like a book, when all along she'd been begging to be read like a poem. I'd mistaken metaphors for sloppy desperation, subpar theatrics.
And not only did I fail to save her, I'd unknowingly given a nod to her suicide. She was dead, far beyond reviving, and I'd once considered my attempt successful. I thought that I'd done it; I'd thought that it was possible for me to save her, never once wondering why it had been so easy.
If not for the ring on what's left of her finger, the ring she'd sworn she'd cast into the river, I may not have believed her at all. The flesh of the girl I'd known has rotted away. Some has been eaten by whatever creatures she encountered in the river's muddy water. She doesn't look like herself anymore, she doesn't look like anyone.
I gather her bones for burial and slide the ring onto my finger.