She said, “You are a troubling amputee. All I can see is your mouth.”
It wasn’t dark but then it was, the sun skirting behind the clouds in self defense.
She said, “I’m hungry. I want my lips back, yours taste like licorice, sambuca.”
She parcels me out like car parts or cracker crumbs and I feel vented and violated.
“At least you don’t get the bloats anymore,” she says. “You should count yourself lucky.”
We’ve been together since the beginning of time. Our old friends used to call us a perfect match. Even my miserable mother liked the choice I’d made for a mate. But it was my father who explained that love was a game of compromise, give and take. “Sort of like Tug Of War,” he said, “only using barbwire.”
Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State with an eagle and three pesky beavers. His short fiction appears in places like Camroc Press Review, Right Hand Pointing and also at http://lenkuntz.blogspot.com.
