duplet on hunger

(or the lack thereof)

i. this is what i mean: i want to know you the way the flytrap knows the beetle cupped tenderly in its maw, as if my teeth around your wrist could feel like some sort of prayer if they stayed there long enough. i want to be the minotaur, fragmented beast, gentle cannibal, weeping on cold stone, horn pressed to barely-moving sternum. i promise to be soft. forgive me if it hurts. our hands can only hold this much desperation before needing more. i still see us in the kitchen, cheek against cheek, my fingers picking at your viscera; there was blood all over my chin when i wept into your throat after. and then – stained marble countertop, butter knife in the sink, an overflowing tap, sideboard scrubbed too pink in the cheap flickering light. i don't want to remember myself as hungry. there's a meaner word for things like me. 

(i'm sorry for taking so much. i just wanted to eat.)

ii. when i was born i cleaved the world in half, my body ripped into a wound, sharp and pitiful and starving. when i said there is a hollow in my stomach i meant that you could fill that cavern. the body is not a god, it is you; you hunched over, your frenzied thumb slit on the underbelly of my tooth, your knife-mouth against the whetstone of my arm, gnawing like a wretched, lost animal. i swallow until i cannot feel the blood congeal under my tongue anymore. the body like a rind, jagged, dipping rough on my mouth. pith melting into sinews, carpals splintering seedlike under the gnash of my jaw. 

YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO STOP TALKING ABOUT FLESH LIKE YOU TALK ABOUT LOVE.