She loves him in pieces, in separate parts.  A sliver of this, a morsel of that.  He is tasty and delicious and she savors him bit by bit by bit.  There could always be enough to go around, maybe.  If she is careful.  If she only sups a little at a time, just enough to whet her taste.  If she keeps her hunger sharp enough to appreciate, but never to devour whole.  She keeps a spare collarbone in her back pocket.  She warms her hands on it, nibbles it delicately with sharp teeth.  When the desire becomes too strong, she puts it away again.  Anything else would be untoward.  Anything else would be far too terrifying.

He doesn’t nibble, or take dainty sips, or deny himself.  Anything.  He takes mouthfuls of bone, of meat, of soul.  When you’re starving, it’s difficult to hold back. When the gas tank or stomach…

Fate
Nina D’Arcangela

Jabba-jaw, raking claw, with haste to the frenzy you did make.
The fray engaged, you are quick to slay any beast brought to slaughter.
Fierce clashing, teeth snapping, bones split beneath hammering rage.
Yet fleet of feet, it has you beat, as it fells your carcass to ground.
The battle fought, fury spent naught; your grin the jester’s call.
With placid lips and eager sips, it sups where you did fall.

The Bones of Her Earth
Charles Gramlich

Her name at ten was Melody. She lived amid the avocado green woods on Millstone Mountain in Arkansas, near a town called Liberty. Melody had hair like a thicket of weeds and eyes no one ever looked into. She had thoughts no one offered a copper penny for, and all her words she kept in her mouth so they couldn’t be slapped away by Mama.

Her name at twelve…

The horseman’s shadowed eyes stared forward beneath the rim of a tattered Stetson. His steed blazed through the night. Isolated by the vast prairie, things which hide in the dark watched his every move. But his guns held firm to his belt, fully loaded. His quick hands, both ready and able.

Although he could not see the path, he knew it well. Not by a painted memory or a tale told over a hard drink, but by a map of dreams scrawled within his heart. He was drawn to that place by a pounding desire to hunt, but his prey remained a blur behind inner vision. He knew not its form or purpose, only its dangers.

One too many folk had been ravaged, and as a traveler, he knew his presence in the nearby town would be more than suspect. His grim expression could not go unnoticed among a people…