I stand before the fridge, its hum a low animal in the silence. The door is ajar, enough for cold air to spill out—thin tendrils brushing bare skin. Inside: a pomegranate. I take it out. Its skin is wrinkled, the first soft kiss of death across its surface.

My heartbeat stammers against my ribs—too loud, humiliating in its insistence. Each uneven thud carries a warning: something will fracture. Something unnamed is already breaking open inside my chest. An ache settles in the lungs, heavy as damp earth. And in that stillness, all I can think is this: I have only ever known how to exist when I am wanted.

It is a quiet inheritance, passed down not in words but in gestures and silences. Worth measured by usefulness. Love rationed like it must be earned. Affection receding when you disobey. Love sharpening into blades when you reveal too much of yourself. The sigh of disappointment always louder than any punishment.

So you learn.

You learn to purchase love with caution.

To shape yourself into their requirement, never your own.

You are wanted when you are needed.

You are wanted when you serve.

You become object: the chair that matters only when sat upon, the lamp noticed only when it casts light, the knife remembered only when it cuts the sad birthday cake. And when no hand reaches, when no gaze anchors you—you are surplus matter, a shadow taking undeserved space.

Once, I loved a boy with the fury of rivers. I stood half-shadow, a liminal waiting place. His laughter filled rooms; I lingered at thresholds, waiting to be beckoned back, as though I might vanish if left unattended.

And still—here I am. Breathing. Turning a pomegranate over in my palm. Inspecting whether it is still edible.

Perhaps it is age. Perhaps desperation. I think I understand now what Plath meant when she longed for the oven’s fire. Not because she desired death, but because the burning was certain. Because flame is at least an answer. When the world moves through you as though you are transparent, when no one’s gaze catches on you—you begin to crave even pain as proof you exist. The burn becomes your only witness.

And now the weight of the pomegranate is unbearable. Because I see it: its worth is not in its quiet ripening, not in its sweetness, but in the moment it is bitten, consumed, desired. What use is its jeweled red if no hand reaches for it?

And what use is mine?

If I cannot be pressed into the palm of an unknown god, if no one will sink their teeth in, if no shirt-corner will wipe the nectar from their chin—then what sweetness am I offering?

Love collapses into function. Worth collapses into service. I do not yet know how to believe in myself as whole, separate, alive in stillness. I only know myself reflected in your need. I exist when I soothe, when I feed, when I keep you from unraveling.

Without that, I dissolve.

Without that, I am only a body in a room:

Holding a pomegranate that will rot in my hand....

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