Sugar

by Mia Ballard

Our love—or whatever it was that passed for love, had dulled, faded from the brilliant hues of new passion to the drab, washed-out colors of routine.

There's a perverse desire that grips me, a longing so visceral it feels like a wild animal trapped within my chest. I wanted to unhinge my jaw like a snake and swallow him whole.

I am the master of detachment, happy and feeling nothing, a serene tempest of apathy and desire. And somehow, in this chaotic symmetry, I find a twisted kind of happiness in my emptiness, a place where feeling nothing feels like everything.