He sprinkles salt in my wounds, gently, as every word digs deeper and deeper
He deprives my life of flavor, saving it like ammo for the next fresh water war
He buries me in a pile of crystals
Shining, sparkling, dazzling, until they dehydrate every ounce of ambrosial hope
He throws salt over his shoulder for 'good luck', leaving anything and everything behind him burning, withering
Like binging and purging, the ocean rolling in and out, he's suffocating me under what he claimed was sugar
Like the mastermind behind water-boarding, he jerks me left and right, pure and tainted, innocent and soiled
He promises that this time it's Confectioner's
He promises the water he's leading me to is fresh
But every time it's salt
And I'm the definition of insane, constantly falling for the same look in his eyes, the same half smile
And every grain is one hundred lies,
And every grain brings another ten-year war
Sodium chloride might as well be cyanide
Simple table salt bottles may as well be containers of gunpowder
We're fighting through the desert, sand turned into his favorite compound
We're losing, bleeding, lacerated, with only his promises as bandages
I'm betrayed by my own body, as I wipe my tears and realize their chemical makeup
I'm trying to explain why I panic if my dish is too salty, why I panic if I'm near the ocean
I'm rebuilding my pallet, substitution after substitution
I'm learning to use other spices
I'm remembering the taste of a simpler world.
I'm washing over my scars with water I filtered myself.