Gnawing hunger, half-mad with thirst, reverberates through my torso and up towards my [[mouth->A1]]. I do not eat food.
Instead, I chew the hair I grew for you, [[until it is nearly short enough to fashion into a crown->A2]].[[Until the splinters get lodged so deep into my gums that my dentist has to pull them out->a3]].Until the broken roots and ends spread apart,
splitting like Pangea's cracked tectonic plates that once shifted and [[separated us->a4]]. Separate is a [[window->a5]], the one that leads me to you.
I peer through, [[my fingers pressed to the glass->a6]], and
I trace the cartographic edges of where my forest's dirt meets your meadow's grass.[[Our homes have similar biomes->a7]],though December is now dying, I still feel your [[warmth->a8]].It is pleasant, and with my fingers,
I can delineate every crepuscular ray of sunlight that laces its way through the branches of your trees,
highlighting the tints of your leaves with its
[[resinous hue->a9]].The beauty of a ruby
that reduces your dark eyes to liquid honey,
as viscous as your voice that [[drips->a10]] from my heart and onto the window pane.Only those droplets remain, memories of what I once thought was [[mine->a11]]—now dulled [[canine teeth->A12]] and
outlines of mangled maws that twist and turn like bonfire smoke.I think I am in [[a place your voice can no longer reach->a13]]—the only sounds that accompany me to sleep are those
that froth from the jaws of suburban [[dogs->a14]],[[snarling->a15]],
throwing the weight of their ragged, shivering torsos
against chain link fences.[[Wild, ravenous beasts->a16]],
crying and howling in the evening
as minivans full of teenage boys speed down the street with a screech.and they yelp
and they tear
and they thrash in [[a deep hunger gone unsatiated,->a17]]for the sun has set and the warmth is gone,
wet fur flecked with new asphalt, [[inedible all the time and never satisfied,->a18]]and everything shaped like fruit
gets left rotting on the vine.