dying in love

do I know how to be in love at all?

Perhaps I do not know how to be in love at all. Dim lights in the restaurant, he sits across from me, pupils dilated, right hand holding my left hand in the middle of the table. Delicate. Croons to me in the four walls. Muffled background noise. Everyone is speaking. Said I remind him of the Renaissance. He finds me smart, resourceful. When he eats, he is loud, navigates his food ravenously. I cannot accept it. I accept it. I decided it makes him manly. Love is a choice, in this way, yes? Or is it simply romanticizing to have grace for the things we hate?

Look to the left, and the bar is busy. Then I look behind him, to catch a glimpse of what’s happening in the kitchen through the little opening where the plates go when it’s time to serve. Nosy and engaged. Typically, when in this position, I imagine other places I could be. I will sit with a man and daydream about what I will cook when I get home, salivate while I contemplate how I will slip under my sheets all alone, and decide what I will watch in his absence. Once with a man, do I yearn to be alone?

But tonight is different. Walking down the strip, after dinner, he holds my hand and glances down to make sure I’m paying attention while he pontificates about late-stage capitalism. It is precisely at this moment that I feel important. Bored and satiated. Woolly brown hair, hazel eyes, tiny strands of blonde in his beard, unbearably human. I study him, study me, questioning myself, wondering if I can love him at all. What parts of me need to die to love you?

I feel like I can only fully love him if I stop loving myself. Sit next to him for too long and I have the urge to be destitute, the most pathetic version of myself, if that’s what it takes, to love him. Strong woman, walls down, a broken city traded for the heart of man.

It is dinner time, and I only feel like I fully want him when he starves me of affection. Too forthcoming, and I don’t feel hungry enough. Dinner won’t taste as good. Hollow is a hunger, fed by a larger void. I will find fault with you as long as you love me. And I will trade you—your apathy, for my affection. I need you not to need me. So, perhaps I don’t know how to be in love at all. At least not without dying as it unfolds.

Deliver me, my Jesus. Deliver me, my Jesus.