WK - exercise - Taste (Room to Write p16)
Schuldig/Ran
Notes: written for Room to Write (Bonni Goldberg) exercise at Borders.
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He tastes like rain and fire. He burns and soothes, and in the end sometimes you're left with ashes in your mouth.
I told him once, you taste like fire. He ran a finger along my lip until I sucked it into my mouth. Does it burn, he asked with a saucy grin. I bit it and he yelped and withrew. Did that burn, I asked right back. He shoved me hard and turned away to sulk.
His sulking is like oil. It is not washed off by water. In fact, it spreads. His oily sulking left a bitter taste in my mouth: slickness and gasoline.
He ignored me and got up to go to the kitchen. He fixed my favorite meal and the water I drank that night left ashes in my mouth.
I am not always burned; left with gasoline and ash. His joy is a contageous crunch, and his happiness the burst of sweet tamago on the tongue after it's been kissed from halfway to a lover's lips. Sometimes he kisses me and I am suffused with the lifeblood of the stars. The eyes of the unknown are windows and not walls.
And sometimes he says things like, Your thoughts taste like warm honey, or, Your nipples are like custard--quit laughing, I'm serious. And I think, You say you're not an artist, but you weave a web that no one wants escape from.
Are you comparing me to a spider, he will purr from his perch straddling my hips.
I'm comparing you to being burned alive by ambrosia, I respond.
And he says, Oh--ok, and kisses me. I am gladly burned.