I knew writers were inclined to break

but the instant I saw you I couldn't tear myself away;

Your shoulders gathered forward as you wrote, oblivious in the corner of a small town cafe where I went for a large hot coffee, no sugar, no cream, just water soaked through jet black grinds.

You stared as I passed, amd I thought of Edgar Poe, Sylvia Plath, and Hemmingway, awkwardly saying 'hi' as I watched you slide a pencil past the crevice between your ear and skull.

You followed me home, where I stumbled through the door, tearing my mouth from yours for an instant to jar my key into the knob. Jackets fell.

We fell.

Four days later I realize the feelings you might and probably would not find for me would never hold a flame to your love for words. Two weeks later you are sleeping over every night and on one, in the flicker of a scented eucalyptus candle, I meet you eye for eye and whisper,

"Do you know there is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to writers who have killed themselves?"

You dismiss me and the grim impending truth, brushing the hair away from my eyes and very gently kissing me.

You kiss me over and over

while I fight a ludicrous urge to cry. I think of my AP english teacher who stood just over six foot six, declaring that all reknown writers lead miserable lives, that he'd once demanded of his parents why they couldn't have beat and locked him in a cellar.

You have four novels published, and a few dozen poems.

"Don't worry baby," you drawl, 'I'm all yours. Forever.'

I can't help wondering what 'forever' means to you, and finally allow you to kiss me. Two months later we are essentially living together.

You grab your briefcase on your way to a job you were fired from three and a half weeks ago and I say "have a good day at work, honey,' and later that day I get a call from a restricted number.

"Don't look for me," matter-of-factedly from the other end, and suddenly I am bawling my eyes out.

"honey,  honey, don't cry, honey, you don't need me. You know that you don't need me."

You coo nonsensically until an hour and a half later you return home, the unbearable weight of disappointment dimming in your eyes.

For two more weeks I have to contend with the conviction that your sympathy prevented you from doing the one thing you truly desire.

I begin calling you Billy Joel. He tried with lemon fresh because  'it looked tastier than furniture polish.'

I begin calling you Billy Joel and you come home with a new scar every day, glass marks, sprained limbs, black eyes severedwristsbluelipscallousedfingers and a plethora of bruises, until you tell me you were adopted and then you are Edgar Allen Poe. Your new parents didn't want you, and neither does death, it spits you back again and again.

The names grow resilient,  Marilyn Monroe, Sid Vicous , Johnny Cash--

until it reoccurs. Earnest Hemmingway, I mean. Yes, this is you,

and I am Eva Braun.