Cold Hearted Cereal Killer

Sex was good. That time when I wanted it too. When I opened like a flowers bloom. Like I hadn’t eaten all day because I knew there’d be chocolate cake. 

I think about the way we fit together. 

The space between your shoulder and your neck. 

The scar. A line, the place where I knew it was safe to dream. 

You made me a sandwich. It was the most beautiful sandwich I had ever seen. It glowed from the inside. The tomato you sliced stored up all the sun. You must have whispered to it. The tomato needed to let me know. Every carbon molecule it ever photo-synthesized shot out at me in morse code. This is love this is love.

He told me once.

But I was afraid to keep asking. 

I let the sandwich speak. The tomato said love, love, love and the lettuce said grow. What did the lettuce know?

And the bread, that fucking bread said let go.

The next morning when you pushed the box in my direction. A cartoon face. Yeah, I got the message. We were both still children. The world and all that. You needed space. My heart ache.

You found me again and again. Every bowl grrreat. Another knock off, another heart break. I was Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. The ones between me just fake.

You’re a cold hearted Cereal Killer.

Meat sizzles, eggs crack, coffee dark and bitter. You’re Dexter in disguise as Tony the Tiger. A brand new box to rip open. Sigh, when the vacuum bag pops. 

“What’s the sound that cereal makes?” I ask, to hear you giggle. You try to make the noise and use your fingers to imitate the action. It’s an ancient sound, like a rainmaker or a great great great Grandmother sorting beans. We can’t place it, but it’s comfort we need. The ting of the spoon against the bowl and clatter against your teeth.

Your cereal is generic. It’s never going to replace me. You can break their hearts. The one with my crooked smile, the one with my laugh, the one that looked so much like me she could have been my sister. The one that had my name, I imagine you could never say it. You tell them they’re great.  You are broken and you think breaking them will fill that stupid ache. 

You deserve to be loved, I try to convince you.

There.is.no.one.else. 

There has never been, anyone but you.

You don’t believe me. They give me diamonds and fancy things. They buy me dinner but not one of them ever made me a sandwich that glowed. With a tomato that whispered love, love, love.

I don’t even like diamonds or rubies or gold. I wanted silver.

I wanted to see the silver in your beard. And watch the crinkles near your eyes multiply. I want to go home and look for the line that’s mine, the place between then and now. The scar that spells home.