There are two kinds and I’ve had both: one in the garden of paradise, one in hell (my punishment for the first: to leave; the other: to stay). Though both are full and red and cloying, I prefer the latter. It craves attention: split the hollow shell to reveal a glistening bedazzled bed, hard seeds resined in desire, tucked between rubbery sheets. Take us, they plead, in your slippery mouth. A full-bodied begging, and who am I to deny them satisfaction? Despite what they say, I am still mortal. I remember the day I decided a taste was worth an eternity with death. This memory in slow-motion: plucking the pomegranate from its branch, knuckling away the thin film, popping kernels in my mouth two by two. I consume everything in pairs, cleave my medication in half to dissolve two pills on my tongue at once, hold a cob of corn in each hand for twice the feasting. I never loved a white man before last summer when I fell for two from opposite coasts with the same name. All this is to say: I am hungry. Every moon, I bleed the juice I am forbidden to drink, dye my silk underwear with want. I finger my hot insides as if unclogging a shower drain, watch as those seedy clots fall to the earth pliant and supple. O sweet lust. O illegal nectar. The red on my fingers stain purple as the blood evaporates, bruising my lifeline in the center of my palm. The color of ache is angriest when healing.