[Written by Aimee MacDonald (she/her)]
when the days were green I would eat sweet foods with no myths attached
no stories of dismemberment, the disembodied folklore of the ones who fear
I had fruits wet with the lick of a foamy tongue, soft fur strange peach solitude
sugary bites from childhood are sour now in my sweet mouth I can’t feel my teeth
tell me they haven’t fallen out
there are crumbs on my kitchen floor
and creatures pressing out from the gaps between the tiles
sealed up things bursting their seams stealing my leftovers
licking the tears from their yellowy eyes
with little pink strawberry tongues
the storyteller tells me they were people once with pulses that matched mine
until the branches from the peach tree started to show beneath their skin
at first a fine thrumming network and a watery soul
then flesh that broke to the touch
punctured leaking out of date out of ideas
tiny translucent hands reaching up to grab the sediment
food I’ve dropped in my sadness is precious
why do we feel this way about delicious things?
the writhing mass of floor trodden food shrieks
we are pleasurable people we are not what you think
hypnotized by empty things passed down mouth to mouth
on stupid glossy pages where you try not to look at your own reflection
instead, I pick the pulp from orange juice and give it to my friends
and feel the concentrated fluid mass in my legs
I think about the moon as a big piece of cheese
Selene’s sweet platter, my hollow hard to reach soliloquy
go on, eat me, please
so I might lie on the soft cold floor and open my mouth and taste all those nice things again and know that they are just that.
