"What I Have Started to Understand About Love Because I Watch Horror Movies" by Keith Kopka

It's the part of the story after the girl disappears,and I know she's already dead,but I keep watchinguntil her friends find her in the boathouseher limp body dropped over the edge of the dock, bare-chested and blanched, her hystericalboyfriend heaving her up and holding her close,corpse-wet hairclinging to the sweat of his neck. This is how I miss you:I am the dead girl's handslipping down her waist and smacking palm upinto the water.I am ashamed of our distance,the six hundred miles between our bodiesand how you sob when you tell me that since I've gonewhat remains is the space where you once grewaround me, the same way a tree absorbs ruinand the hollow of constructed frames.On the screen, the boyfriend is now victim,tearing through woods, clipping every branchwhile the killer walks coolly behind himknowing he will fall eventually.I have never sacrificeda virgin with the knives I keep in my kitchen.There is no wolfs bane or garlic beside my bed.I sleep unprotected.But because I know endings, I will never make love to youin the crypt of an abandoned castleor parked in the woods with your back pressed against the dashof a jet black El Camino as the hook hand scrapes closerand closer to the door handle.I know about the tissue of the heart,the persistent pull of muscle and bone,and the beauty of blonde hairagainst the shoulder of night. Because of the Wolf Manand Frankenstein I understand heartbreak,how we cannot escape the inevitablefull moon or torchlight, and the way my stomach moveswhen you ask me what I am thinking and I am thinking about someone else.