4 - Broken

    The first time she came to me her spirit had been broken.  She
looked to me to heal all of her wounds.  Her self validation stemmed
from the physical.  She unknowingly fed from the life force and was
satiated with the small amounts she drew.
    The mirrors in her home cried as they struggled to piece together
the shattered image that looked to them for comfort.  She came to
make what she called love, to feel warm hands, to be caressed and then
to disappear like the hours across the time zones, expanding in distance
not substance.
    Once I asked her to stay.  "If I stayed," she said, " it would
ruin what we have."  It was then I knew she would never see "it".  I
shut down after that.
    I always wondered why she was drawn to substandard emotional
relationships.  In the time I knew her she had moved from scum bag to
scum bag always crying to me when they stole money, wrecked her car, or
couldn't make their share of the rent.
    As I grew colder her affection for me grew.  She had gotten herself
into a vicious cycle and I was caught in the eye of the storm.  I picked
up the phone to call her but thought better of it.  Any sign of warmth
on my part and she would run.  She wanted all I had to offer but she
didn't want it from me.
    The dreams from the previous night were like bad sex, short and
uneventful.  I slept until the mid afternoon.  Today was the day to
conserve energy for this night was my night to live.

That Beautiful Black Man