dead soil

Half-hearted laughs and inadequate distractions shield what happens behind closed bathroom doors, underneath sheets of silence. My skin burns, and you stare. You wait. For me to find the right words, ones that feel natural on your tongue, ones that sate mine. A blanket that warms one and ices the other— am I allowed to shiver when some have no blanket at all? They tell me to request the warmth be shared, I reply that I prefer it chilly, they tell me I’ll freeze—and I’d rather—than to ask for a hand from someone who waits rather than insists.

Hungry mouths eat what’s put in front of them, or else we must not be so hungry after all, particularly when my lips form to articulate words outside of thanks. More particularly when I don’t say a word at all. More particularly when I starve, back-turned to a dinner table lavished by foods that breed deficiency. Firm in my hunger-strike, an act of protest born of my own insatiable needs, you flaunt an empty chair, staring, still, with your own reservations. I turn the other cheek once more, fed only by memories of fullness. 

When I ask for the warmth of your blanket, will you blame me for still being haunted by the cold? When I ask for a plate to be filled, will you blame my belly’s incessant rumble? I freeze, and I starve. I say too much, and I say too little. I feel a distant heat; I hear the clinking of dishes. Now I am chilled, and I am hungry. I shut the door and lie in silence to ponder plants blossoming from a dying soil. My skin burns still, but you do not wait. The next you see me, the laughs will be whole and the distractions adequate.