Anathema

II. FAIM

            The following days have gotten hotter than normal. It's mid July cooking me in an oven until my heart explodes all over the kitchen.

Mama's smelling nicotine in my lungs as she rids my guts from the linoleum when I come home too late and insists I have been tempted by the devil. She will much rather learn of my fondness for a whorish ingénue than that of the devil himself, but I can't help what pleases me most. Francis embodies the pinnacle temptation of sin — the muse of my saturated dreams and the reason my touch lies in unholy places.

             He seems to know everything – like my indifferences with my mama and how she is losing it by the second. And he kisses my knuckles like he knows what I do into the ungodly hours when I think of him. I'm almost certain he isn't human, presenting a beauty too unreal for my kind, so I exploit my soul to him. I'm blackening my lungs with cancer with him — for him, spending dozens of afternoons trying to figure out what he is. And I do everything he tells me in his pretty french accent.

* + * + * + *

            "She thinks you're the devil," I tell him and he laughs.

            We exchange a cigarette and glimpses of each other without the other's knowledge. Something about the way the thin gold chain lies on his collarbone complementing his eyes makes my chest feel like it's going to spontaneously combust.

         "I thought you spoke highly of me," he says.

But I do – so highly [from my knees it looks even higher]. When she wonders where I spend my days into the evening, I only describe him as a seraph and this place of nirvana. But she thinks that anything that brings pleasure is a sin. If she learns of the libido on my lips whilst following him through the park to unknown corner's of seduction she will damn me to hell.

But he only leads me to the strawberry vines and presents the ripests ones to me.

            "They leave a good taste on the lips," he says, Eat.

I do, without hesitation — heart faltering in my chest. With bellies full of apprehension and haze, we soak in 104 degrees – drowning in July's sea of amaranthine.

              My tongue goes numb, again. "I don't know what you are..." I say in the silence of the bird singing near by.

             "Not even a clue?" He asks.

             I shake my head and his ill wearing grin tangles my insides. He loves this [my obliviousness].

              "I don't really care much to know..." the curious lie lingers on my breath like the strawberries.

               He laughs again, "Liar" – causing my heart to become bitter. "You want to know... badly. I can tell."

It kills me when he says it like this. He stares into my eyes, but I cannot bring myself to look back. "I hate that you know everything," I say without looking and the presence of his smile fades.

"I only know what matters." He takes two fingers to my chin and pulls my gaze toward him.
« ton admiration pour moi » he says.