Alice

Alice Loses It

Dinner guests line the rotund table where I

Rest, undressed, and rigid. You

Invited them at my late request and

Never have you ever seen such

Keen, ravenous faces looking at

Me.

Eagerly,

Everyone salivates, drooling like dogs,

Anticipating the

Taste of

Me.

Everyone salivates.

Soon, they will

Unbuckle my waist and

Creep their fingers up my torso.

Knocking on my hollow body, stud detecting.

Only ceasing when they tear meat I spent my girlhood hiding.

Nocturnal eyes roll back in haste as

Mouths unhinge; compulsory drool leaks between lips.

You watch as they

Bite into my barbequed body, suck on my seasoned skin

Anointed with canola oil and honey and rosemary sprigs and slices of

Ripe strawberries. They

Eat and eat and eat, engulfing my

Ribs, like vultures consuming vermin.

In spirit, I am pleased their plates are

Bare except for the sparse scattering of my thick

Skin, too calloused to chew.

Dinner guests excuse themselves,

Inventing lies, exchanging

Goodbyes.

Everyone leaves my bones behind. You

Stow them away, ivory glinting in

The china cabinet.

Mom, you don’t have to save

Every scrap of myself.

But, I will not be digested. I

Unearth pieces of myself from

Raw, gurgling

Pits. I climb out of various vats of acid, alive.

Vultures vomit varmint,

Open mouths regurgitating

Mangled mice skeletons

Intermixed with mucus.

They puke.

Maliciously, you jab the pads of your fingers against the smooth, pink flesh of their throats.

Everything I’ve ever said or done tumbles from their mouths, and you’ve never been happier to rummage through bile for bits of your daughter.