Black Widow
Inspired by "Tiny in Her Halloween Costume" by Mary Ellen Mark, 1938
You can never truly love something until it is gone. Until the security of two feet on the ground suddenly earthquakes and you fall. Fall into despair so deep it shatters your bones, and your lifeblood leaks out of you, calling for his name. You can try to hold yourself steady and press the knife into your skin, watch the color paint a melody of his voice. You can hide your face behind a cage and drink until the present is a fluid, blurred mess. Smoke until your lungs explode, and you splatter like a Jackson Pollock onto the dirty floor where you belong. You can pray to a god who can’t save you, but none of it will erase your sin. None of it will put your shattered parts back together. For in the mind’s eye of his touch you birthed hands like spiders which crawled through every orifice of your body until you were wrung out to dry. No, you will never know how much you love him until he’s gone.














