Food Chain
Krystal Yang
I didn’t know you had a hummingbird in your throat until I kissed you in the library the day before graduation. (Now this, this you still make fun of me for it, even after all these years.)
I screamed and pushed you through a bookshelf, because I felt the bird hammering against your lips and everything turned into electricity—what else could I have done?
Back then, I definitely thought it was a little weird. Like you had swallowed a radio, or a miniature chainsaw, because that dangly thing in the back of your throat was vibrating like crazy, and your voice was this whirring sound that bounced from your body to mine, the sound equivalent of seeing yourself in two reflecting mirrors. When we held each other, I touched your burning throat with my hands, and it was like massaging a beehive, a warmth that buzzed right through my fingertips.
“Does it hurt?” I asked you once, while we were watching a movie in your room.
You paused the movie, right before Iron Man’s girlfriend burst into flames. Thought a moment, before typing a sentence on your phone. Turned it around to show me.
It’s fine.
It took you a while to figure out what was in me. And don’t take this the wrong way, but yours was pretty easy to guess. And no, I’m not saying that because you can’t speak up to say otherwise (you can, however, sprinkle salt in my coffee and leave me sarcastic post-it notes inside my books). Really, I loved you more for your honesty than for that thing inside you.
I think you realized while we were flying back home after spending Christmas with your family. You were looking at animal pictures from the airplane magazine. I was sleeping, but you woke me up with tap on shoulder. Pointed to a photograph of an owl, brought your ring finger to your bottom lip, and touched it to my forehead.
“How did you know?”
You hoot in your sleep & spit pellets into the toilet??? You scribbled your response on the back of a napkin, ignoring the bag of pretzels that came with it. I guess I couldn’t hide that sort of stuff forever
What does it feel like?
“Honestly, I can’t really feel it. It sleeps during the day, so it usually doesn’t bother me.”
What about at night?
“Not sure. I do dream an awful lot about flying. And mice.”
Your brain? It’s okay?
I became a teacher after college—and you, a writer. We didn’t make much money. We borrowed from a rich aunt of yours, bless her soul and her wallet, to move into our apartment. We slept with the windows open—for me—and started growing things in little planters along the windowsill—for you.
I screamed and pushed you through a bookshelf, because I felt the bird hammering against your lips and everything turned into electricity—what else could I have done?
Back then, I definitely thought it was a little weird. Like you had swallowed a radio, or a miniature chainsaw, because that dangly thing in the back of your throat was vibrating like crazy, and your voice was this whirring sound that bounced from your body to mine, the sound equivalent of seeing yourself in two reflecting mirrors. When we held each other, I touched your burning throat with my hands, and it was like massaging a beehive, a warmth that buzzed right through my fingertips.
“Does it hurt?” I asked you once, while we were watching a movie in your room.
You paused the movie, right before Iron Man’s girlfriend burst into flames. Thought a moment, before typing a sentence on your phone. Turned it around to show me.
It’s fine.
It took you a while to figure out what was in me. And don’t take this the wrong way, but yours was pretty easy to guess. And no, I’m not saying that because you can’t speak up to say otherwise (you can, however, sprinkle salt in my coffee and leave me sarcastic post-it notes inside my books). Really, I loved you more for your honesty than for that thing inside you.
I think you realized while we were flying back home after spending Christmas with your family. You were looking at animal pictures from the airplane magazine. I was sleeping, but you woke me up with tap on shoulder. Pointed to a photograph of an owl, brought your ring finger to your bottom lip, and touched it to my forehead.
“How did you know?”
You hoot in your sleep & spit pellets into the toilet??? You scribbled your response on the back of a napkin, ignoring the bag of pretzels that came with it. I guess I couldn’t hide that sort of stuff forever
What does it feel like?
“Honestly, I can’t really feel it. It sleeps during the day, so it usually doesn’t bother me.”
What about at night?
“Not sure. I do dream an awful lot about flying. And mice.”
Your brain? It’s okay?
I became a teacher after college—and you, a writer. We didn’t make much money. We borrowed from a rich aunt of yours, bless her soul and her wallet, to move into our apartment. We slept with the windows open—for me—and started growing things in little planters along the windowsill—for you.