The First of Us

   Her feet were sticking out from the bottom of the blanket. Pale and undoubtedly cold. I loved her like this. Vulnerable, changed, approachable. Like this she needed me. I was the warmth she yearned for beneath feather down and cheap poly-blends. She didn't know—denies she knows now—that I am for her. She is my perfection, the flaws I search out to make myself stronger. What I can't be—what I won't let myself be—she is. What she needs I make myself into. Even if she doesn't acknowledge it—me—even if she takes without asking and demands more. I'll give everything, anything, because I am just that pathetic. I'll cover her cold flesh with my caresses and ease my worries in her frigid heart. She doesn't encourage me, and by default does not confine me. She takes and I refuse to ask. Maybe if I could, if I forced myself to, I could deny her. Put the blankets back in the closets she stole them from, lock them back up and refuse her comfort. Would she notice or would she steal over to the neighbors' and knock on their window, stain someone else's linen with indifference and expectations? My hand on her bare skin—not chilled by the night air—this was supposed to be my chance. I was supposed to hold her close and make her see me.

Self-sufficient.

Useless.

   Damn her, damn the blankets she stole from my bed, and damn the thirst that drove me to wake and find myself frozen. I should have stayed, crawled under the top sheet and removed myself from all of this. The games she plays will drive me insane one of these days. What will she do on the day I refuse to join her on the floor and walk out the front door instead? Will she claim everything I leave behind—memories of myself—or will she walk out after me? Not to find me of course, but to find another me, the next one. I both worship and curse the me before me. The one that left—the one that couldn't survive it. All she knows is preying on what we have to offer and clawing her way into our homes, our hearths. She can make it on her own. Time and time again she's told me as much. But she needs me—she does. Who would she be without someone to control completely? Without a worm like me? What was she before the first one left?

                    Who would I be without a love like this?