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someone beautiful told me
to write about the bad things
but it’s hard not to think
that what’s been bad
is deep inside my body
i think about goodness sometimes
but my arms and legs are just teeth
and my teeth always ache for something
better than me
i’m hungry for goodness
it’s been this way since
i was born into badness
and everything thinks i say that
just because it’s easy
but my knowing has never been easy
i flay myself because the pain is coping
someone beautiful told me
to write about the the bad things
but so much has been bad
and so much is just me
maybe i can get what’s inside me out
and be just a little less ugly
if i show it to other people
in a way that’s pretty
i was never supposed to have a body
god put me inside myself to test himself
and maybe he wasn’t really god
but that never really mattered
because he rubbed my matted head
as he tightened my chains
and he told me
“i’m going to make you good.
“i’m going to take your evil
and teach you.”
i was locked up for very long
because hungry things
can’t be trusted to do anything
but try to eat
god held things in front of my muzzled mouth
and sang about the salvation of starvation
and maybe he wasn’t really singing
but it sounded so lovely
to kill myself and be saved
i was very hungry for very long
(i’m still hungry)
first, god taught me how to talk
i didn’t like all the words
they were just another way for me
to fail
but one day i said
“i don’t want to be hungry”
(i’m still hungry)
and god let me eat
i don’t remember what he fed me
i only remember asking
“can i be good now?”
(i’m still hungry)
i was never supposed to have a body
god put me inside myself
to kill me
i ate nothing for days
and maybe if my mouth hadn’t been frothing
it would have been a way to repent
I wondered if i was bleeding sometimes
i had hands but they were useless
because i couldn’t make myself into me
i had feet but they were useless
because i couldn’t run away from me
i ate nothing
then god brought me something alive to eat
they were like me before i understood
that one day i could pretend to be good
we were locked in a place without bodies
and without time
we swallowed each other
i read someone call cannibalism intimate
they were trying not to tell the truth
i ate
when i was done i still had my stomach
i thought the body god gave me was useless
but then i understood
i didn’t like my human hands or chest or feet
but they weren’t the things betraying me
i was just a hungry thing
I don’t know how long i was in god’s cage
i was outside of god’s cage
for the first time since i became a body
my shackles were still hanging me
but that was comforting now
because my body recognized the feeling
god told me my hunger could never be good
but it could be better than bad
i only ate the things he gave to me
there are many that i still remember
something quiet and wise
who died saying
“i don’t want to look at your mind”
something hot and wild
who burned on the way down
and left me shaking
because i might never be that warm again
something very loud
who cried for the storm to save him
i call them things
because it matters less
that i didn’t try very hard
not to be hungry
they were things to my teeth
and things to my stomach
and god said
“see how even evil can learn?”
i tried to devour myself once
i was taken back to the cage
i did not understand my body
god took me to meet other divines
and maybe they didn’t care about divinity
or maybe they did
it never mattered
i did not understood myself
when i didn’t feel the chains
when they were around me
then i knew
i was something smaller than hunger
i was something that could be buried
the other divines looked at my teeth
and asked god if i had ever bitten him
and he said “she’d bite me now
without the chains”
i remember nodding
one of them told me
to stop showing my teeth
so i tried not to smile
but it was confusing
because god had said that smiling
made me look like i understood
and I didn’t understand anything
but i knew the chains
would make me into someone
someday