inside it even though fresh baked bread or croissants or peanut butter banana muffins sound great. My stomach gives a little wet gurgle at the thought. She’s out of the house for the rest of the day and there’s definitely no bread in or soon forthcoming from the oven. I open it several times to check, but it’s cold and empty. There’s not even the residual smell of some already consumed bread. I get hungry and pull leftovers out of the fridge myself, eating them cold and on the floor in the kitchen. I don’t use a spoon or try to avoid the lumps of congealed fat that float along the tops of food or line the edges and bottoms of containers. If she is going to leave me to fend for myself I will grow wilder. I will become feral and unmanageable. I plunge my face into containers and let sauce and grease soak my hair, skin, and clothes. My eyelashes are smeared over and I blink to clear my vision.
When she comes home I leap onto her, knocking her to the floor. She shouts and I wallow in it. I wallow in her. I drag her to her feet and press her against a wall and then pull her to me so I can slam her head back into the wall. The smack of her skull against the wall is satisfying. My muscles unknot with each successive smack of her head. My sinew strengthens and stretches. My arms and legs are longer and my reach has expanded. I slam her head into the wall again and again, to the rhythm of a song I enjoy, but whose lyrics I can’t quite remember. I leave her barely able to move and then I have her in all the ways I want her. But it isn’t enough, because she keeps leaving me over and over. The leaving is ongoing, a loop of frustration. I can hardly be happy when she returns home because this is part of the leaving process. The sight of her makes my stomach curl into itself and grind against my intestines, pulling at them, making it hard to concentrate. I am overheated and queasy and sit outside taking quick deep breaths of cold air, trying to steady my innards, trying to cool them and create some space for them to spread out.
10 | Psychopomp Magazine