We both say that we wanted this.
You went out and bought stockings,
painted the nails, while I stayed inside
lifting the barbell, unworking the knots
in our old tennis shoes. Ours
was a bargain of fishnets; full of holes.
I wish you could feel what I feel,
you would say. What it's like to be
so easily hurt. And I wished I could
give you a sliver of my hunger, the force
that makes hands rough, makes teeth
meet in flesh. You split like a stranger,
a dead bone, removed. While it was
your turn, I clenched small inside,
amazed that your softness could
hold me in, and while it was mine, I felt
you drift, nearly lost, like fog dampening
the hairs on our skin. You, smooth
and rounded; me, furred and broad.
And yet it was you that consumed me first,
you who became the velvet case
for the years of my wait, the entwined snakes,
the stranger whose blood I still have to share.

Jacqueline West's work has appeared in journals including St. Ann's Review, Inkwell Journal, flashquake, Barnwood, The Pedestal Magazine, ChiZine, and Ideomancer, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut novel for young readers is forthcoming from Dial in summer 2010. More about her work can be found at www.jacquelinewest.net.