40Lbs of Fear

I know your in there I can smell you.
Like an animal, my senses are on fire.
I am alive now and you are my prey.

I run my fingers all over you, taking in your texture, revelling in your depth.
I close my eyes and breathe you in, sweet, rich and needy.
Desperate for my touch, my tongue on your form.
You were made for me. I need you.
You own me.

I swallowed my mother and father a long time ago.
I swallowed my brother too, but he repeats on me, like onions.
I swallow my stepmother every day.
She refuses to stay down, vomiting herself all over me.
I have swallowed many men too. Some came like real butter on toasted doorstops or double cream straight from the spoon. Others were like cheap spread on a dry scone, or over cooked bacon with rind twisted and burnt.
In the end, they all went down the same way.
Tasteless and sate-less.

I never really digested them, I can here them now.
Crying, screaming, digging their fists into my spine. They speak the same words ‘eat, eat, eat’.
They eat me.

They only taught me the bitter fairy tales.
A moment on their lips, a lifetime on my hips.
A pound of flesh? Try 40.
Who is the baggage handler on this journey?
I am sure it wasn’t a self catering trip.

Searching for the one moment of silence in the feast.
I hear only the gnashing of teeth.

How will your ‘love’ go down my friend?
What part of my expansion will you claim?
Will I taste you?
Will your sugary deceit be as bitter as the others?

Always empty.
Hunger sated only by love.


Bonnie Fairbrass