Only a heart like mine could understand a polarity like this:
deprivation and then excess, the ritual of it, a rhythm to sink
my life into, accustomed to wanting and hating the need.
The flood of sodium, potassium, other such careful levels in blood
all shift as I try delicately to balance routine catastrophic damage.
I try, pushing brute force to be delicate. Catastrophic it remains.
My grin becomes caustic. The public is unnerved when I’m honest.
I drink salt in my water. I’d lick the rivulets of crystals that run
from my cheeks and pool at the hollows of my collarbones
if they didn’t make me glitter so nicely in this harsh kitchen light.
The thought that this would kill anyone else echoes weightlessly.
I’m not prone to dying. Only a heart like mine could be so incessant.