Anorexia

She wanted her; she could pretend for brief moments that it was love but eventually she was forced to divorce the two because love had nothing to do with it. It was the difference between wanting to observe a wildcat on the savannah and wanting to shoot it, pack it with preservatives and sawdust innards, and mount it in one’s home. There was something like love there, and it might have been love at one point, but love is no longer love when it’s emaciated.

It was, instead, a string of self-destructive habits. It was shaking fingers dialing a phone number like loading a bullet and pressing send like Russian roulette, and wondering whether, in this metaphor, the ignored call was relief of life or unlucky death.

It was an alcoholic’s last drink, a smoker’s last cigarette; she was graced with approval, affection, a touch, a smile, and it tasted bittersweet in her mouth and it demanded more when there was none to give. So instead she searched for ways to get more in the worst ways, in inadequate, hungry ways, upturning tables looking for a stale cigarette, and falling harder every time it wasn’t enough.

She wanted the girl with dark hair, the one that talked too little and too much and infuriated her the way no one else dared, and no substitute would fill her shoes. She wanted to bury her alive in her heart with no headstone, wanted to hole her up like a caged bird and demand to know why she was undeserving of reciprocated starvation called love, and instead

she got the privilege of watching her fly free.

Who could turn down an offer like that?