Together

At first, the impulse felt kind of itchy, like my gut had tied a ribbon around itself a gentle lick of a cat's tongue. Creating a light friction that was insanely soft but made me want to dig my fingernails into my midsection and squeeze through like gelatin, watching the thick chunks of jiggly solids flubber in my grip, the contents of my stomach dripping down my arm in a mess of dirty blonde hair.
I don’t know why I ate all my hair.
I suppose bald isn’t as great a look as I thought it would be.
Eating my eyebrows and pubic hair may have been overkill,
But I just don’t want to lose a part of myself.
The light whine of a fingertip on the lip of a crystal glass rang volumes in my ears as I announced to my family that I was leaving them and their city for a farm house with a septic tank, extra large.
I just don’t want to lose a part of myself.
I never wash my dishes or flatware,
The coagulated scum sponging up on the surface doesn’t bother me as long as my old spit is there for comfort.
I just don’t want to lose a part of myself.
I tried to not clip my nails but I hated feeling like I could bend and flex.
Now I just keep them in a large tupperware in my kitchen cabinet next to my boxes of spaghetti pasta. For you see, the hair slithers down your throat in similar fashion if you cut the cooking time three minutes and
Dont
Chew.
I just don’t want to lose a part of myself.
Yet why an attic full of mirrors and dank basement sheltering an army of canvas? Each signed a different name, place, and demeanor of depiction?
For I saw myself in them and for that I will never let them go.
I just don’t want to lose a part of myself.
And when they found his body on the night of my deflowering, and asked my why I had done this- I told them that he had taken a part of me,
And that I just didn’t want to lose a part of myself.