Anne Champion
THE HUNTER
The day you installed the microphone in my apartment, you’d broken my heater
and feigned ignorance of how to fix it. For six hours, you methodically unraveled
pieces of yourself as cautiously as the wires twisting between your fingers. I handed empathy
like I was passing tools—the more I put into your palm, the more you confessed:
the dirt floor of your childhood home; your abusive, alcoholic father; the drive-by shooting;
the teenage prison sentence; the men who held your limbs down and tattooed your testicles.
I must’ve done something very bad in a past life to deserve this life. I didn’t fear you or flinch.
Have you ever seen that Netflix show about a stalker? you asked. Yes, very dark, I replied.
The more you unfurled, the closer you moved towards me. I could feel the heat radiating
off your skin. When your arm touched mine as you pressed against me shoulder to shoulder
to show pictures on your phone, it felt like an electric zap. There you were, palms gripping
horned beasts slayed, while I cooed and beamed like a mother cradling her newborn son.
I had no idea that someday, I’d be the carcass you gripped, the prey you hunted, the empty-
eyed, slack-bodied picture on your phone, the proof of your power in your palm.