I want to be emaciated, not of flesh but of need. My hands are so cold. I keep wondering if they will ever learn warmth, as if warmth were something earned, something the body could retain. Everywhere you touch me, my skin ignites. Flames, sudden and violent, as if I mistake burning for salvation. I confuse your warmth with interest, with care, with something that belongs to me. But it doesn’t. It never did. It is warmth I borrow, pressed briefly against my chest before it fades. Intimacy gives the illusion of belonging. It tells me I am held when I am only close. Each kiss feels like survival, like I’m siphoning life from your mouth to nourish what’s starving in me. When it fails, when nothing inside me wakes up, I kiss you again, believing insistence might become resurrection. You touch me and the desire to disappear loosens. This is easier than repairing what’s broken. For a moment, the void quiets. For a moment, I hate myself less. When our fingers intertwine, I want you endlessly....
Parents are forgotten gods. My first act of worship was not a prayer but irrevocable love for my parents. It was easy to cast parents as gods when they were your eyes to a new life. The slow movement of your mouth as your teeth grind food, the small steps that you take confidently in a stride now, the smile that goes too wide because there is no shame in showing a moment of joy: all of my parents’ teachings live through me. I was their New Testament, their Vedas, their Torah, and so were they to me. Their voices wrestled in my head at every decision. What would my parents do? In moments of fear, I reached for the safe blanket of parental security to take cover in. Their ideas seemed so big and inconceivable. My inexperience ascended them to the pedestal of gods. I sought their blessing as earnestly as any believer. Heaven was the small smile of approval. Hell was the disappointment concealed behind indifference. It was important to maintain this balance, albeit impossible; my brain fou...