i could eat the world raw

the devil is in my ear; he whispers to me. satan is at my side his scaled coils curled around me, constricting my lily-white throat i open my mouth let him slither down into my belly. the devil is inside of me. he has a venomous tongue and a boa’s muscular body when i sleep i feel his tongue lick at the lining of my stomach my abdomen roiling as he moves, displacing my skin. when i wake, i lay one slim hand over my belly to feel his turning and writhing, he is curled in my womb growing and growing i am helpless to do anything but feed him. how can a mother refuse her starving child? at the breakfast table, my own mother stares only at my swelling belly what? i ask she only shrugs. she serves me a bleeding fruit, red juice spilling over the sides of my plate onto the tablecloth that is as white as my throat; the fruit’s blood stains the fabric. eat up, she says you’re eating for two now. it is the most natural thing to lean down, pulling my hair back, and lick the juice from the table. it tastes of copper, sweet and metallic just like blood. in my belly, the devil winds himself into a sleepy convolutions sated. i carried him with me for months cringing when his fangs scraped against my soft insides and when he was finally ready to put in end to my immaculate conception he fought his way back up my esophagus. i vomited him up with my own blood more bitter than the fruit’s blood; i did not feel like the mother of god i felt like i was dying. i looked at the floor ready to see my son to see if he was worth it. nothing was there. the devil is nowhere inside of me; he never has been, it was only my own belly my own fangs my own slick coils it was my own voice in my ear, urging me on. it was only ever myself, slithering down my own throat. who’s the heretic now?

aries. you were once alive, like all of us, passionate your heart beating with our suffering and then boom: anathema, the fall from grace is always the most painful. you are here now in the dirt with the rest of us: a breathing corpse. your heart beats for nothing. taurus. you wanted to know about what made a god so different from a devil i remember that now, the sound of your labored breath catches in my ear i’m sorry no one ever told you before. (it is nothing, baby— there is no difference.) gemini. you were good; you stayed in at night and only fell in love when you were supposed to, but you loved her hair, her eyes were so beautiful in the moonlight that you didn’t remember how high your window was, hovering on the second floor, now when i look at you i only see your still chest, your crooked neck. cancer. i know. i see it, i get the picture, it was you and you alone that night your hands clutched tightly to each other stupid prayers the rasp of your gasps in your throat, you were daring, and foolish, you poor, retched thing. leo. when you are afraid, there is no feasible way to roar, but half credit for the effort, half credit for the croak, that’s the kind of work we like to see here even though it still isn’t enough. virgo. they tried to tell you that death couldn’t be pretty and they were right: it wasn’t, but it was beautiful to you all that blood all those endings, it was as organic as the inflation of your chest. libra. in out up down what a time to be alive. they wanted to weigh your heart against a feather; how silly was that? and then, when it outweighed it, they wanted you to watch your own soul eat it. that’s some cannibal shit. you can’t breathe with all that muscle in your throat. scorpio. you were the card-holders, the one with a flush in hand, you were the one with the ultimate poker face and a still chest; they never would have known that you were alive. sagittarius. you were supposed to lie with the rest of us, all for one one for all but they caught you breathing on the sly so now we’re all done here, with slit throats and dead eyes. you were only supposed to pretend until they looked past us. capricorn. we write you in as the weak link: the one who didn’t hold their chin high enough who didn’t breathe quiet enough, we hold you accountable for the way everything fell apart, all because you were alive when we were supposed to be dead. aquarius. it was a crime, all the things you did, the smoking and the dying and the ruining. you were criminal, your cloudy breath and blank face and dirty hands, none of it happened the way it was supposed to and you, you just looked on, watching it all and saying nothing, just like god. pisces. when the sun set and your cool sighs blew over the dead grass, over the motionless, scattered bodies, it was like you were never there at all. you: the wandering ghost.

wind blows, leaving behind goosebumps on their washed-out skin. the two girls are huddled together against the cold one breathes out, her exhalation of smoke made thicker by the chill the cloud dissipates slowly; the other girl watches it go. it inspires a keen nostalgia in her for the simpler times when it was only about cigarettes and weed, when they only worried about hiding the butts of joints from their mothers. it inspires a keen nostalgia in her for the simpler times before everything got worse and they both needed more to soothe the itch. we can start again next week, the smoking girl says, once this weather warms up a bit i don’t want to do anything with all this cold here. the weather has not been warm since last year, the other girl doesn’t say this, she only nods and accepts the pipe from her friend. she says, i’m getting tired of this she’s been tired of this for years. preaching to the choir, her friend says and takes the pipe back to take her next hit she blows it out, her soft mouth puckered lips violently red against her sallow skin. the girl wipes her nose; the cold is making it run. we have to stop, she says. the girl beside her doesn’t respond, she watches the smoke float away lazily looking as though she wishes she could follow it up into the clouds. i know.

things have always been quiet, the room only filled with her soft voice her rattling breath the sound of my own sadness. but never before has it been so silent. it is a loss as much as it is freedom, i am a pioneer; alone lonely independent. this quiet is just as terrifying as it is relieving. i make the now-empty bed, fold sheet over bedcover then lay the cold duvet over it all, pretending for just a moment that i am laying it over her again. the bed remembers the shape and scent of her still body. i sleep through the mornings; i do not want to look up at the clock and see 7:22 staring down at me. the hands on the clock watch me like i watched her, but i feel no comfort, only silence. the only sound in the room is a soft ticking.

she kneels down in front of her altar: a large stump standing alone in a dark forest. she has never felt more at home. her forehead presses against the wood, if her eyes were open she would see ants crawling over the rot with red blood mites sucking at them hungrily she is starving for her own magic; the bugs are starving, too. out of the corner of her eye, something moves swiftly past her perhaps a person perhaps a ghost or a spirit or nothing at all. she places her palms flat on the stump, her teeth holding her lip, a fat drop of blood runs down her chin splatters on the wood. “let it eat him alive,” she whispers and the universe hears her and the universe tastes her blood. it wants more and she wants to give more. above the girl, a full moon rises, about to tip back into its waning cycle, but she only feels herself growing bigger. the picture is serene: the waning moon and the waxing witch. she moves one hand to the pouch on her waist, releasing a handful of salt on the ground a single, red candle burns in front of her as another drop of blood falls to the altar, she extinguishes the flame with precision, squeezing it between two tips of her fingers. she whispers, “let it swallow him whole.” the night wraps itself around her body, holding her like a lover when she started, she swore to herself that she would never do it, that she wasn’t dark and so she didn’t need the darkness. now that she’s had it, now that the power is rushing in through the wound splitting her skin, she knows that she’ll never turn away from it again. she’s never been so happy to break a promise.

Hello- sorry to bother! I am writing a term paper on modern interpretations of Greek Mythology, and I absolutely adore your poems. Would it be okay if I cited your poetry and included a link to your blog? No one would be seeing it besides my professor, and I understand if not! I just thought I would ask before I did anything!

I’m very, very, veryyy slowly making my way through the 200+ requests in the inbox. This is the first time in a long while that I’ve felt mentally able to face that much pressure. This is also a friendly reminder that