down

it's a complicated place to be, with your head hanging low over a low bowl.

i should have known, when you brought one fork, one plate, one glass of wine. i should have known that my head would spin. in a fog, i had a half thought of what kind of pet you thought i might be until i realized that i was only myself. a pet. an animal fed from your hand, gazing at you in hope and hunger.

and you fed me from your fingers, until the hunger became something else, and then you fed that, too.

all the time since i have only felt at home at your feet, leashed by your side. my human skin only holds the animal you keep.