Autobiography of My Hungers

          His beard: an avalanche of   honey,

                   an avalanche

of  thorns. In a bar too close to the Pacific,

                            he said, “I don’t love you,

               but not because I

couldn’t be attracted to you.” Liar—

                                     even my soul

is potbellied. Thinness,

         in my mind, equals the gay men

                                      on the nightly news.

        Kissed by death & public scorn.

The anchorman declaring,

                             “Weight loss is one

        of the first symptoms.” The Portuguese

have a word for imaginary, never-

                   to-be-experienced love.

                                      Whoop-de-doo.

        “I don’t love you,” he said.

The words flung him back—

                            in his eyes, I saw it—

         to another bar

where a woman sidestepped his desire.

                  Another hunger.

                                    Our friendship.

In tenth grade, weeks after

                             my first kiss, my mother

said, “You’re looking thinner.”

         That evening, I smuggled a cake

                                      into my room.

I ate it with my hands,

                   licked buttercream off

                            my thumbs until I puked.

         Desire with no future,

bitter longing—

                   I starve myself  by yearning

          for intimacy that doesn’t

                                        & won’t exist.

Holding hands on a ferry. Tracing,

                   with the tip of my tongue,

a  jawline. In a bar too close

                                to the Pacific, he said,

“I don’t love you, but not

          because I couldn’t be attracted to you.”

                                    His beard:

an avalanche of thorns,

                  an avalanche of honey.