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Category:
Literary Fiction
Publisher: Turtleneck Press
Type: Fiction
Pages: 28
A nameless female character is being eaten by her organs.
Excerpt
my spine hisses
in my ear. [i will eat you, it whispers.] my spine moves up and down my back, biting its own bone plates and sucking the marrow out. [self-cannibalism, my spine says, sticking its tips into my ear.] i walk with my head down and my spine up. my spine bites everyone it meets. it grabs them with its iron-tipped nerves and drops them on their backs, breaking the columns. [i do not have any loyalty to my vertebral family, my spine says.] my spine watches me when i sleep. it slides out of my body and curls up beside me, twitching in time to my breathing. my spine pokes my ribs until the bones push out of my skin. i wear my skeleton on the outside. my spine insists on living inside my throat. i swallow and everything tastes like spinal fluid. [would you stop thinking about the yellow, my spine snaps.] it thrashes around until my chest aches. i vomit vertebrae. each bone strikes the floor and bounces away, leaving a trail of bone shards behind. my spine pushes me down and makes me follow the flakes. [eat them, my spine says and pushes my head against the ground.] i eat the bone and they taste like my skin. my spine makes me eat my skin as well. it lifts my wrist to my mouth and hisses, [take a big bite.] if i do not, my spine lashes me until my middle welts. so i dig my teeth into my arm and i do not like the way i taste. i am strange meat. my spine salivates in my ear. [i want to devour you fully, my spine says. but then, if i digest everything, i won't have anything else to look forward to. i won't have a body to live in.] so the spine eats me slowly, stealing bites from my feet and elbows. my spine likes the mucus and hard things. it crunches and grinds its column until its nourishment is pulverized yellow. [say you love yellow, my spine says and i open my mouth.] the spine pushes kidney stones onto my tongue. [now say it, my spine hisses.] [i love yellow, i say.] but my words are garbled. it sounds like, [eh uhv elluh.] my spine cuts my tongue with a knife. [i am branding you, my spine says. so that way, when you die, i get first pick of your meat.] i cry in the shower when my spine soaps my meatiest parts clean. it cuts the flesh in perfect circles punctuated with its initials. [sc.] spinal column. [isn't there anything else you can eat, i ask and my spine screams.] it sticks its nerves in my ear and bursts my ear drums. [there is nothing else, my spine says. i was created to devour you. i've been eating you muscle by muscle since you were first developing. those pinching pains in your back? from me biting down. scoliosis isn't spinal curvature. it is the parts of the back still left intact from my daily binges. i like to eat in a figure eight. i make s's because they are part of my name.] sometimes, when i push the spine away, when i hold a fork to its marrow, when i threaten its nerves with a knife, the spine punishes me. it wraps its cord around my throat and squeezes until the room spins bright yellow and red. [am i dying, i ask and the spine releases me.] [not yet. there's still much more for me to eat, my spine says.] it bites the sides of my throat. my spine vomits the meat into my stomach. i digest myself. my spine bites my abdominal walls. [the paradox of all the acidic ages. how does the body eat itself without eating itself, the spine asks.] it spreads its vertebrae. i see my stomach inside, churning acid walls, spine yellow.
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