"She said to me once, “Remember that thisis what you asked for — a love that would leave you..."

“

She said to me once,

“Remember that this

is what you asked for —

a love that would

leave you starving;

a hungry mouth.”

It happens in the silence

after we both finish;

still catching our breath.

Faint at first

but before long,

the scent is burning

in my nostrils —

she has been

with someone else.

She is no longer the person

I fell in love with

so many years ago.

Her bones are starting to

wear down, and her skin

is the only part of her

that seems to understand

just how capable love is

when it comes to

destroying everything

that falls in its path.

In the shower that night,

the truth shocks me and I awake

in a jet stream of scalding hot water.

The news of her new lover

leaves my skin raw and stinging.

Don’t scream. Don’t shout.

Stop jumping to conclusions,

I tell myself.

But when it comes,

I bite back the sob

clawing its way out of my throat.

I swallow the evidence,

let it churn in my stomach.

Wash the smell out of my hair,

and send suspicion down the drain.

Listening to the rise and fall

of her breath in bed, I imagine her across town

with another girl. She is Christmas in July.

She is a gift that my love never gets tired of unwrapping.

I picture her peeling the skin of this girl’s clothes away —

her naked flesh is her favorite kind of fruit.

”

- “Never love on an empty stomach," Written by Colleen & Anita