placenta recipes for young girls

my boyfriend was trying to eat me
but i didn't realize it.
he took handfuls of salt & rubbed them 
across my skin. he called me tender 
& full & ripe. he fed me olives from the jar.
i thought he was so kind & thoughtful.
it is so easy to mistake a boy's hunger
for his love. he asked me to put my hand
in the cast iron pot & i did to prove
how loyal i was. in the shower
he turned the temperature so hot
i thought i would boil. i thought
my skin would fall off the bones.
he sometimes wondered aloud
what human meat might taste like.
i told him i thought it probably tasted bad.
he loved pork rinds & chicken skin.
he wiped his fingers on his jeans.
girls will turn their brains to spaghetti
to forget being edible.
the worst part though 
was when he'd ask for a child.
he would run his fingers across my skin
& say he was imagining me pregnant.
he had read you can eat the placenta
for stength after the child is born.
alone, i searched for images 
of a placenta. i considered whether or not
that would be vegetarian.
i never said no to him
about anything, i just braced myself.
i gathered my thoughts towards
surviving another day in my body.
he cupped a breast in his hand
as if to weigh it. he asked 
if i might consider eating more.
in this version of my life i'll say
i got thinner in protest--
so that he couldn't eat me.
i remember him pressing my skin
to feel for my bones.
sometimes i meet him in my kitchen.
he fills a pot with hot oil 
& tells me he's been so hungry all these years.
we have a child made of raw chicken breast.
the baby cries & i hand it to him
to dunk into the oil.
i would be a terrible mother.
i keep track of where my meat collects 
on my skeleton. i sometimes bite my lovers.
they sometimes bite me.
we leave it there.