There’s this feeling I get after a firefight, when the shells are still bouncing across the ground, and I’m still a little blind and deaf, but the whole world is crystal clear, and I could just fall to the ground and cry like a baby because I’m still alive. The first time I felt it I thought I was going to burst out of my skin. And then everything rushed back so quick I felt like a newborn. The whole world was brand-new and I was on top of it. I could swallow it whole.

You think I haven’t seen the same look on your face?

The closest I’ve ever been to the Garden of Eden is the genesis on the battlefield when the shrapnel’s still falling like hail on a tin roof. You look at me with those blue eyes all hot and electric in your face, blood on your cheek, soot smudged over your nose. Bone of my bones. Were you taken from my rib? You must have been, or maybe I was made from yours. And God damn, I want it. I want back inside you. I want you now, same as I wanted you before, prettier than hell even with a bloodied nose and split knuckles. Don’t care you were smaller. Liked it, even — same as I like you this way too. You make me hungry. You understand? You make me hungry. That mouth pink like spun sugar, though it doesn’t stop you from talking fit to cut anyone down to bits with your angry words. A spitfire since you learned how to speak, and I’ll tell you something, it’s hell to love a fighter.

Anyway, Jesus — I shouldn’t even be thinking it, much less writing it down. I used to love you so sweet, the way kids love, the way I was supposed to. Then it turned greedy and true. If there’s any Heaven that’s fit for me it’d be all your pale skin under my hands for the rest of eternity. I wouldn’t need anything else. Not food or drink or sleep. Just my hands on you and your sweet love-sounds.

I think it’s fit I take it to the grave. Wouldn’t make you any happier. In fact it’d do nothing but put you in danger — that ain’t something I want. It’s another story I tell myself, I guess. That I’m being noble and doing it for you, when really I’m just being scared, and can’t do it to myself.