Marrow

I come home every night with my bones broken and my brain crushed in. No blood, no marrow: all drained out of me. No energy, no desire: all taken out of me. No plan, no tactics: all wrecked out of me. Eyeglasses broken, hair ripped off, fingernails pulled off.

I sit and sit and sit and look at the empty page and my pen. I feel every time that I must be doing better, I must’ve done better, I must do better the next time—that is the first feeling. So I pick up the pen and start blackening the page with all sorts of nonsense; because I know you need it. My scribbling and doodling is needed to give you appetite for tomorrow’s meal. I know the raw meat smell of the nonsense I put on paper will awake the beast within you.

After I’ve blackened enough pages and blackened them enough with my crushed-in brain and my broken finger bones, I know I must erase the things what you put on me. I know you want me fresh and new. You desire me to be touched by none before you; and not touched by you before either. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been handling me for the past twenty one thousand years or the past three minutes.

So I reforge: I give it all that I have left to—no, wait, I first enlarge what little amount is left within me to something that I can work with and satisfy you. Then I give all that I have to remaking and purifying the thing I am. It is slow and achy as the bones mend and rejoin. I have to push the pieces of my skull back up with the pink disgusting puddle that was once my brain; and then I have to freeze that puddle, pass an electric current through it and let it defreeze to remake it into my brain.

Immediately after, I take out of my pocket the only thing you ever gave me: A fingerprint. From the little finger of you left hand, of course. It makes me laugh every time that what I am about to do is so similar to Jesus Christ touching water to turn it to wine: I touch your fingerprint to red wine, the most expensive I can afford, and the wine becomes blood. I do this for a while; I need to have enough blood for your thirst tomorrow.

And then I sit and meditate silently and focus and focus to refill my bones with marrow. I know you like the marrow good and juicy. I know it’s your favourite part of the day when after breaking my bones you finally reach the colourless liquid, I know the smell makes you crazy and I know you almost love me when you’re licking up all the delicious fluid.

Regaining the energy and the desire are easy. The knowledge that you desire those of me is enough to make my heart restart beating every night both literally and figuratively.

A plan. Tactics. These often take some effort—a joyful effort, though: Every single thing I reformed and recreated and repaired has been tormenting me to have a new plan and develop new tactics since the moment I brought it back. I just listen to the call as it comes to me; and in no time the domesticated dog that I am turns back into the alpha wolf.

As the sun rises, I quickly pull another pair of glasses from the spare box and put them on. I pour some water on top of my head and smile as I feel the hair growing back out. If everything else has gone well until that point, and it does every night, I become quite confident and it is enough for me to wish my fingernails to grow back for them to.

Just in time, every time. I put on a shirt and pants for the sake of those that cannot see through my clothing like you do and I go out.

I walk around, work the routine; and I look for you even though I know I will never find you until I stop looking and I will then come across you only if you wish to find me. Thank goodness you do. Every day.

When our eyes meet; or rather, when I look at you –because you seem never to look at me until you gaze through my whole existence, because I don’t even have a single vague idea where you eyes are-, I know that it began.

You break every single one of my bones without hitting me. I don’t protest—it is my pleasure to satisfy your appetite for my bones and my pain. Except you like it better when I protest because my protest also feeds your appetite, so I do let out a little scream that is not a fake because it actually does make me a bit sad when you smash my brain without –and by not- thinking a single kind thought of me. You still do not take a single step toward me but I feel pale and weak and I know that all the blood in my body is drained as I see your face become rosy and beautiful. Then you finally reach for me, hold me tight and go for the broken bones. On the verge of passing out, I hear your teeth rattling and my bones cracking and I feel the marrow flowing out slowly. That’s when you go crazy—you suck every single bone, lick it all up, gulp it all down. I feel it strengthens you, I hear your growing pulse until it becomes thunderous to my ears. By the time you are done, I have no energy left, curiously. You have abused me so badly I feel no more desire for you either. So I assume you took the energy and desire too, somewhere along the line.

You rise to leave; but return after the first two steps after every time. Almost as an afterthought, you snatch my heart and take my plan and my tactics as well. Even without a mind, I know you need those to prepare your own offerings to some man or deity I wish I never knew of. In desperation, I manage to break my own eyeglasses, rip my own hair off and pull off my own fingernails every day.

Very shortly after you depart, some kind soul takes me back home. And

I come home every night with my bones broken and my brain crushed in. No blood, no marrow: all drained out of me. No energy, no desire: all taken out of me. No plan, no tactics: all wrecked out of me. Eyeglasses broken, hair ripped off, fingernails pulled off.

I sit and sit and sit and look at the empty page and my pen. I feel every time that I must be doing better, I must’ve done better, I must do better the next time—that is the first feeling.