Once I had a lover to whom I would feed small pieces of my heart, until there was nothing left. When he was hungry he came to me, and asked for more, and so I opened my ribs and said to him “there is no more”
And he looked at me and said “I am starving” and so I cut off a piece of my liver and offered it to him, but he said to me “it is bitter” and pushed the plate away.
So I stroked his head, and told him I was sorry, but he would not look at me, and I found that the little nest of gauze and silver wire where I had kept my heart ached when it was empty, so into it, I put a picture of my lover in a silver frame, but that made my chest ache when he would not look at me, so I told him that I would get the heart of a young calf, and see if the meat pleased him.
But he said to me, “no, it is for you I hunger, give me your soul”
So I took it from the hope chest where I had kept it, neatly folded, among the linens stored with sachets of rose petals, and gave it to him, asking that he eat only half, and he told me “You are greedy” and so I gave it to him whole, and he was full again.
One day though, I became hungry, so I went to him and I asked him “May I have a piece of your heart, I am hungry” and he looked at me and said “No, for if you eat my heart, I will have no heart, and the iron cage in which I keep it will ache for being empty.”
So I said to him, “but see,” I said, opening my rib’s to show him my silver nest with his picture in it, “I have given you my heart, and to fill nest where I had kept it I have this picture of you.”
But he shook his head, “but if I were to do that, then it would ache were you to look away from me, yours aches when I look away from you, does it not?”
“Yes, so you must give me your heart so that I may eat it.”
“Your aches are your own,” he said, with a laugh, getting up from the table.
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 