Emily Christie

Breakfast

You call me spoiled as my tongue curls around a stick of toast, captures goo, draws it in. I feel its warmth spreading through my cheeks, lighting my eyes from within, the holes in my face illuminated like striplighting spilling through an office window. I am neon, electric, your labour lifted me.

You say it again, spoiled. Your words compress me. I roll my eyes, my ruining fingers crush crusts, roll them into tiny, tight balls for my fingers to straddle and flick onto the floor.

You gather up our actions like tallymarks, score us on laundry, cooking. Each completed chore becomes inches gained on a map of a battlefield, wooden figures pushed under agitated gaze. When you don’t speak your disdain you seep it, the door handles and frames slick with the ooze of your contempt, the walls whisper your scorn.

You watch me eat, fingers pressing into your mug hard enough that the tips whiten. You press on objects when you want to press my skin. I am not blameless, I wind you around my fingers, point you and release. I relish the chaos of spilled paint on our bedsheets, you recoil and I embrace.

You can’t win while I eat. I chew, spin the egg cup between forefingers, watch you start at the noise. Muscle leaping in your left eyebrow, almost funny. I swallow my laugh, glance at the sweating wet laundry spilling from the mouth of the washing machine. My turn, we both know it.

You are speaking, a low rumble like a reversing truck, my stomach heavy. My tongue unfurls like a banner, orange and yellow and crumbs a billowing proclamation of my feelings for you. You come to a stammering stop, brakes applied.

I watch you recoil, nose wrinkling, shoulders shudder. I rise, dip my finger into the egg, paint my lips with its soft innards. You press your back to the fridge as I advance.

I am monstrous for a moment, fingers splayed, eyes wide. Coiled, I await you. Then you laugh, folding like paper as my hands grip your forearms.

I kiss you and you murmur disgust then smile into me. The tension melts, your features tumble, forehead and eyes released. The bills lodged in our minds, the oily plates in the sink, the empty bottle of bleach lying sideways in the bathroom. They are nothing now.

I kiss you hard. When I finally pull back you hurt my eyes, you share my glow.