Salima decided hunger had gotten the best of her heart. She feared the thought of finding strength. Hunger fed her heart so, she craved it even in the light of her struggles. Good times were unpredictable and short-lived. Hunger was the beast she knew. Slipping in and out of herself, restless, confident, terrified, she’d blended with the beast, a shadow of herself. A hero and a pity. A shell to be shed. The inevitable was clear, one day soon, wasn’t soon enough. So she’d breathe and die wrapped around Hunger’s finger. She was victorious. She’d found a purpose she would die for.

What else is there to do but die hungry?

Living was a myth

Hope was for the dying

And as long as Salima had Hunger, she had something.

The beast she knew.

Better than a long, silent death, filled with Hope.

Days passed

And still Hunger hadn’t tired of Salima

Her heart longed to be released

Her body, still in prime health, had betrayed her deepest wish- to die with the passing of Time

She felt abandoned for the first time in her existence.

Death had left her behind, in the care of Hunger, her devoted lover.

A devotion she despised.

And depended upon.

But there was something grabbing a hold of her spirit.

It was a light, dancing far off in the distance.She sat up, her back detaching from the tree trunk she’d called home.

Her knees cracked as she rose to kneel and lean forward to push herself off of the ground.

Standing

Her arms locked, holding her body still as the earth flipped, tossed and sprayed all around her.

Ground

And she remembered.

Her mother

The water

The cracking of the pillars that held up their house

When the wind blew too hard

And the sea forgot its bounds

Washing away her life

All life

As she knew it

Her bed, as it floated away on the tides, carrying the last picture she had of her mother

The pantry that they could never fill, consumed by the sea’s waters in the blink of an eye

She remembered

When she met Hunger

She wasn’t in love at first

She’d been convinced

That Hunger was all she had

But as she rose, her spine climbing itself, she remembered

She remembered her spine

Her backbone

As she rose, squaring her chest

Hunger faded away, a memory buried deep in the rubble she once called home

She squinted her eyes, hoping to get a glimpse of the light that had captured her spirit

She watched them tarry away, and the blood rushing to her feet

Lifting and stamping each one on the ground, rhythmically, she regained full strength

She had to catch up to her spirit

She ran

Away,

Toward

Herself.

The light

She sought and created…

(Photo Credit: Joshua Keating)

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