18. knead, or: how breaking up with you has me attempting slam poetry

you're sneaking up behind me,

stealing balls of dough

when my back is turned,

leaving footsteps in the flour scattered on the floor

like some strange

breathing ghost,

swept in through the kitchen vents.

I crack eggs into my palms

and let the whites slip through the cracks;

grasping onto the yolks,

my fingers find themselves

grasping for yours.

small glass shards of

sugar and salt

personify themselves as you,

leaving razorthin cuts on the ridges of my knuckles

as I rock my wrists forward

and back,

like the motion of your hips,

softening the flesh beneath them.

boules speckled with whole wheat husks

and your shoulders in the summer

the smell of wild yeast

and the smell when we wouldn't leave your bed for days –

and you know, Clay,

I could go on and on

about you

using various bread imagery and metaphors –

how you wouldn’t rise to the occasion

no matter how much I pushed and pulled,

how moody and finicky you could be

depending on the weather,

the burns you would leave on me

in the most innocuous places

that I would only notice once we were naked,

the inside of my elbow,

the dip in my shoulder,

every inch of my thumbs,

but I’m so tired of thinking of you

whenever I punch down my dough

because you’ve ruined it for me,

because I learned to knead while you chopped the garlic,

because I learned to knead along the length
of your forearms,

because I haven’t made a good loaf in weeks

because saline isn’t the perfect salt to water ratio

and the dough just won’t bind properly,

because Christ said, “Take this and eat, for this is my body”

and you are my wheat

and you are my body

and I have eaten you for so many years

that I’m beginning to understand the rise of gluten intolerance

because the French word for oven is derived

from the Latin word “fornicatio”

because of the phrase “a bun in the oven”

because your bun was in my oven

but you couldn’t handle it

and I couldn’t handle it

and then it wasn’t there,
and then you weren't there,

because the life cycle of a grain involves it 

dying

so it can be reborn into the spike 

that we cultivate for nourishment,

and because of this, 

wheat was believed to contain the

very mystery of life and death,

and it was sacred.

and I wish anything else would remind me of you

but everything else reminds me of you

and 7 years is a long time to be in love

and unhappy

and 7 years is a long time to perfect the perfect recipe

but 7 years wasn’t enough time

to figure out

that our timing is off

and our recipe is flawed

and I love you

but it hurts and fuck I’m tired of it hurting

because my arms are tired

and my palms are bruised,

but 7 years is a long time.