V. Maraví

Yes, I have lost weight. I like to call it the heartbreak diet. My mind is devouring all the nutrients, drawing all the links, figuring out what went wrong, what's fixable and what's not.

The coffee I've begun drinking makes me jittery and jumpy. I pace around and feel queasy, heart-- no, head hurting.

My whole body craved you tonight. (I guess that's what happens when you've had sex every day for a whole year). I could feel your phallus, my body wanting to take you in. But it was all a dream. I am alone in this bed. I cannot scratch your back or mumble "I love you" until you fall asleep. You're gone. You're-gone-you're gone. My body still hasn't realised. It will take some time to forget it. And a lifetime to replace.

English will never be fully mine. I cling to it, but it slips through my fingers like soft sand.

It's an endless endeavour. The language keeps on expanding. It's vast, endless.

And then I miss my mother tongue, with the soft splashes of Andean diction cooing me like warm milk. It's soothing, unlike the vernacular tones of the capital, consonant-free.

I feel the decay when I roll my tongue: some people cannot understand what I say. So I work hard to maintain my reduced English lexicon, day in and day out.

My family was wide-eyed.

“But you never drink a thing, let alone wine", to which I replied:

“Can’t you see? I'm trying to build a new me

because the old me has been hit by the heartbreak train too many times.”

They ask me how you’re doing and I just smile,

say you’re fine.

They ask me about our plans

and if there will be any buns in the oven.

I nod

He is goals and never ending todo lists. He's what adulthood looks like. He is the roughness on my skin that I'd learned to enjoy. His drive is relentless. I cannot keep up.

Sometimes I wish I knew how to write better, express myself better in English.

My boyfriend says I’ve reached a level where I need to put more effort in learning new words.

It hurts a bit when he asks me to speak another language, because my English is too raw and whatever I say is too harsh.

I thought I was good enough, but I’m still too jerky and doubt myself too much.

Or maybe he makes me feel uncertain to have control over me.