Hunger: A Prose Poem

I think almost everyone can relate to something like this...

How much hunger could a person bear?

 

We were together, but not completely.

 

Our togetherness was a quick, dry kiss

goodbye in the morning.

The only sign of tenderness

your brushing a toast crumb from my face.

And later,

a call from work --

"Chinese or Indian?"

but the falling asleep bit

was always my favorite part.

Watching your face in the barest slant

of light,

and the red blue

glare of

the gas station sign

just diagonal, across the street.

I'd watch a gentleness placed

there only by rest,

purely unintentional.

 

Hours later, the frown

would return, leading to the scowl,

a slamming of the door,

and the angry way you'd put on your shoes,

flinging aside the metal horn

and clearing your throat.

One thing rolled into another

and I'd leave the house

unsteady in heels, lipstick

half on, half smeared already,

and the smallest flecks of

mascara falling

onto my cheeks.

Those were our mornings.

 

Hour would follow hour

each and every day,

bringing us back, eventually,

to the starkest of realities.

We were just about over.

And I tried,

I really did,

configuring possible

options,

diagramming solutions.

cleaning our space to perfection,

and talking to teapots

as I boiled water for tea.

 

But I had needs going unmet,

and focusing on them

hurt.

Out of three straws, I was

drawing the wrong one --

knowing you'd no

longer be there to open the bills

I so feared,

or to reassure me, and

hold me in place for hours,

challenging my mania.

And I feared spending aggressive

New England winters without you;

You always did the driving.

 

Like so many do, I went in

search of what I had been needing

for months, almost a half year.

I knew if I were to find him,

I had to spread out the map,

and get myself there,

across three wooded towns

and an unsteady bridge.

For months, he'd written

me thousand-word poems

feeding me line after line

until my cheeks became red.

He was my secret --

and like insulation,

he kept my anger at you,

and what we'd become,

on the outside.

Although I should have felt it --

For too long, I deflected

and deferred my anger.

Instead of accepting what

was organic, what had been

coming for two seasons

and tying strands, wrapping

up old wires, I turned to

something new.

He asked me how long it

had been since you called me

beautiful, "If more than an hour

it's been too long."

Voracious and weak,

I took it in.

 

He was something new,

unblemished, and

I had nothing yet to blame him for;

we'd never had a disappointing Christmas.

He had no knowledge of my former self.

And though there were still moments

as recent as yesterday's breakfast

when you came close,

barely touching my face,

brushing the crumb

from the corner of my mouth,

and for a moment I thought we could

work, but it was just another rumination

of a tired mind,

so entirely fruitless.

I remembered, though, that we

were only wrapping things up,

sorting through closets,

stacks of pictures

from the day we met,

the rugby game in September,

then the boat race along the Charles,

a week at the lake, laughing

when we put the cat in shallow

water, and watched him paddle to shore,

rewarding him with a charred hot dog

cooked over the fire

we'd built outside.

Now, there were days of packing ahead.

 

But I was so hungry,

hungry to disentangle myself

from our story,

before I excused

your cruelty, your glib

responses,

and though I knew better,

so much better

than to seek another's arms

and body,

even before the

moving truck had left the curb --

and then multiplying that day

by at least 5 or ten,

giving me time to sort through

the damage,

fold that final tshirt

you left in the wash -

close the drawers you'd left

open,

sift dirt over the trenches

we had fired from,

and wipe up all that spilled milk.

Then, even harder to

get used to, the open space in

what was now the largest of beds,

and to be able to stop

the tears when I find a single strand

of your hair on the pillow,

a discovery that sent me flailing

for the linen closet.

New sheets, I said.

That should do it.

It was, after all, just a process

a series of steps set forth in stone --

and all I had to do was just follow,

but I was so hungry.

 

When his call came,

after those months of sonnets

and sestinas,

I pictured the rotary near his house

and the minutes along Rindge Drive,

the boathouse in Cambridge --

all the poseurs of Harvard Square.

It would all be there if I left now

to go get him.

He'd be standing outside on a crumbling

porch,

wearing a blue button down, he said.

I took my keys from the hook, and didn't

look back for a minute.

I knew the chemistry

of our house was off; I, and the house -

we were no longer

compatible without you.

 

On the way, I thought of a picture taken on the

first day of my parent's honeymoon

in Lake George, New York.

It's square and small, a black

and white still.

My father lay on his back,

his chest slick with Johnson's

Baby Oil.

My mother's hand rests on his chest.

She's wearing a top like a sailor's,

navy blue and white, with a

raspberry scarf tied around her neck.

Her auburn curls are blowing in the wind,

just afterthoughts, so casual,

and her legs are tucked just beneath her,

so perfectly feminine and tanned,

legs any man would die for, and

legs I didn't inherit by any means.

Instead, I got my father's muscular calves,

strong, sensible. Looking at the picture

would one day be too much for them both.

I saw my mother pick it up, just to toss it aside the

year after their divorce; the picture had become a

portrait of a ghost --

a moment, just a blip in time,

an airplane lost into nothingness,

across the control tower's screen.

 

My indecision wore on me;

biting my lip, I followed your directions:

through three sets of lights,

then I'd wrap around a rotary,

pass an ice cream stand, then a funeral

parlor, bear

a left onto the ramp,

then something about a bridge.

Every mile was a revolving door,

and I was so close to returning to you,

wherever it was you were,

but instead the rain fell

and I watched it tiptoe across the river.

Three men huddled beneath one umbrella,

one pointing at the sky.

The world had turned grey

so quickly, without warning.

 

I finally arrived in front

of his house with

my windshield wipers keeping time

to the radio.

When he opened the door

I smelled the rain, fresh earth,

and cologne, faintly applied, notes of vetiver

and sandalwood:

I wondered how long he'd spent getting ready.

 

I had shut off my cell phone, buried it in the

glove box: I couldn't be tempted to call you,

and tell you where I was,

and all about him --

How he is pear shaped, and like you, gets those

shaving bumps on his neck and jaw.

They look so angry, uncomfortable,

and part of me wanted to offer help

as I had once offered to you,

(some witch hazel, perhaps a few

dabs of jojoba)

but this was not that

relationship - such a move would

be forward, desperate, even creepy.

 

When he glanced out the passenger window,

I looked in the rear view mirror,

checking lipstick, hoping to see

the blueness of my eyes,

the half matte/half-glow

of my 28 year old skin.

Instead I saw a woman who needed so much,

who wanted to pull "I love you" from a stranger's

gut. I needed to hear it so badly,

to see if I still mattered,

if I was still worthy of another try.

 

We took in dinner and the conversation

was polite. A single grain of rice

hung onto his shirt, but

I was too embarrassed to say so.

In my imagination I went places

I wouldn't tell anyone;

instead, I forced a smile,

tossed my head back in laughter,

taking any opportunity for a respite from

the thought of you, and

the empty place I'd soon walk back into,

the meowing of our cat just an echo.

I'd flick on the bedroom light

and realize I was in just another

romantic comedy, stuck in the middle part,

around 45 minutes to an hour,

when the pain is just too much

and the character cries in the laps of

friends, or stands in the shower for 20 minutes

just letting the water wash her clean,

leaning against the wall to sob, naked.

Then, she watches the phone while still

in her robe, picks it

up to make sure there's still a signal,

only to place it down again.

 

But my eyelids were growing heavy.

We walked to the car,

his arm around my shoulders.

He was an unexamined safety,

something to wrap up

in, a place to hide from the rain

and to postpone the dark ride home.

It'd be so late that

no one else would be on the road.

The only sound, the wet pavement under

my tires --

the glow of the streetlights, eerie.

 

His range of topics was limited,

golf, video games, the 3 co-workers

he despised,

but I didn't care.

He directed me to a river,

a place to park and just talk

and I had no strength left to refuse

on that night smack dab in an Indian Summer.

I watched him stumble from the car

to pee in the bushes,

and heard the rustling of weeds, tall grass.

I should be here I think, more of a reminder

than an affirmation. I had resigned myself

to simply follow the road, wherever it went--

anything was better than washing out

your old coffee cup,

or sleeping, my arm outstretched

to your pillow, in your flannel shirt

 

Back in the car now, he beckoned me to rest

my head on his lap. "No funny business," he said,

"I just want to stroke your hair, it's so pretty."

Ravenous for validation

a compliment

I took his offer without question, hit the lock

on the doors, turned around and settled my

head in his lap, on his khaki trousers.

Now he smelled like a bar,

tobacco and beer

and thoughts of my father

rolled through like a storm;

it was the way he had smelled as far back

before my memory faded.

"You're still thinking of him,"

he said. And I make a choice.

to either laugh it off,

deny what was so obvious

or admit I'm just one of the walking

wounded -- running across city

streets, wearily climbing

to third floor apartments,

pushing a token in,

then throwing a hip into a turnstile --

A 6:00 pm train through a dirty city.

Each step solitary,

every face a promise-

searching for recognition

or a face that suddenly

turns to us, ponders us,

if for a moment only.

We're all sore creatures.

 

I yawn, and stretch my arms over my head

conscious that my breasts will swell

and eclipse my v-neck sweater,

and it works.

He shook his head and sighed,

"Such a waste." Glancing me over

from head to toe, his hand playing with my

hair, brushing the top of my ear, then

playing with my bottom lip,

sliding his hand down the surface

of my skirt, measuring, planning

doubting; he's confused too.

 

But, I am thinking of you,

wishing you had seen

what this man was seeing now,

right before you closed the door

on that last day:

The promise of me,

flesh filled with secrets.

I wonder if you could be thinking

of me too -

and if the thoughts of ex-lovers

sometimes rush faster than the speed of

light, find each other in mid-air, unite.

"How's your's doing? Mine is miserable,"

one says, and they take a moment to

share notes, to commiserate

before they separate again,

both the fruitless thoughts

of fallen lovers,

carelessly, perhaps unnecessarily

displaced and frustrated

with human pride.

 

Last night I dreamt that

you were the captain of a pirate boat -

the tallest ship I have ever seen.

You wore a hat like Captain Hook

and your eyes were so dark, they looked like

coal. But, you summoned me aboard

and when I did, I sunk into your kiss

warm and wet, such an unexpected kiss,

a kiss that spun like a top,

neither of us saw it coming.

But it was just a dream,

a dream that left me preoccupied

my head on his lap now,

his hands running the length of my body,

resting for a moment on my left breast.

I know he's interested; he'd go there

without question.

For me now, there are only words,

words are my redemption.

There is poetry to write,

and prose, let's not forget the

stories, or the lyrics of

our song playing on the radio.

At opposite sides of the city

separated by subway rails, twelve Starbucks,

the curves of Brookline,

we'll listen at the same time,

and turn to open the window --

perhaps our thoughts will find each other

above the first layer of sky,

forming clusters of lights --

salmon pink, vibrant blue-green,

the red-orange explosion of two

wayward crafts,

lighting up the night sky over Istanbul

Vienna and Nashville --

a rain shower of gold

a meteor,

lighting up a city cut like a grid.

Though we're apart, undecided,

hundreds of little children point to the sky

holding their daddy's hand,

on a night thick with gravity.

They hold their breath,

just watching.

 

I drop him off, and the car is full

of sorrow. The beer is wearing off

and I watch him pee on the side of

the road one last time,

and it's too familiar;

I don't want to see it.

Too much, too soon,

and I cant wait to get him

out of my car,

even though

sex would have felt good,

and pardon the pun,

it would have filled a hole

for a moment.

But I knew that the emptiness

would be ravenous after,

devouring me,

and turning me inside out.

I'd listen to your echo

in a shell

lined with the palest of pink.

I knew he needed to go home

for the benefit of both.

 

Twelve miles north of

our apartment,

three doors down from

The Chinese Garden

where we'd slurp

from the same Scorpion

Bowl, our lips so wet with rum.

My heart now so broken

it's transforming my

body into stone

and I'm so scared I'll

never feel anything again,

bliss nor pain.

I'd block them all

I feel no desire

for you, not for anyone.

I'd be just a latent She.

 

My headlights catch the

cerise geraniums dying on

our front porch; the

blossoms became exhausted.

The key goes in the

door,

turns the lock, and

the rooms are fervently empty

strewn with packing material,

clothes spilling from drawers.

I know that

nightmares will come,

clammy and dark,

and they'll wake me,

shaking me until I come to,

and the imprints of your hands

have never left.

Worse days are coming --

I'm terrifically scared.

Have we made a mistake?

I can't help but wonder.