Apples

by Hunter Hodkinson

He buries his wounded fangs deep into my chest and with a hesitant yank rips my still beating heart from me. I bleed out on the pavement watching him apologize and frantically sob, as he slithers away. First the clouds go becoming the same color as the sky whites to blues and then the leaves the trees brown to green.

There is a long breadcrumb trail leading to my deflating body; little heart nuggets I cut from him over the course of the year. All the strength he had left was used to ripping my untouched, strong, beating heart out. He did it quick, like I should’ve to him. He did it earnestly and respectful like a band aid.

I dilly dallied, and let a pile form from red matter. Whereas I implode all at once he’s been walking around deflated, little whispers of air being let out over months. He unknowingly left someone with knives for fingers handle his heart and I was to complicit to warn him. Dried juices of his love are sticky beneath my finger nails and mine drips from his mouth down his chin like ripe apples in the dawn of summer.

Hunter Hodkinson is interested in literary and self reflective prose and poetry, and often tries to reflect this in his own work. Currently he has no official publications but has been recognized by a few local community colleges. He is a transplant New Yorker, born and raised in Ohio.