Her Blue Dress: A Collection (Watty's 2019 Winner)

I Was Hungry

On the night in question, I was hungry.

So I found a boy that was hungry too,

hip to hip, we skipped around the party

knowing there would be food later.

Hours past and people left.

My hands aiding my stair climbing

told him it was dinner time that

there would be food later I knew

I kissed him once or twice

before another party boy walked in,

saw me, too drunk to eat

and left, so I could get fed.

"I'm not hungry.

I'm not hungry.

I'm not hungry.

I'm not hungry."

He stood over me with the kind of hunger

that makes food in famine,

that makes the rations his,

that eats first.

He split me open from throat to below, to

own everything my ribs were told to protect,

told to protect myself I laid still,

choking on food I knew there would be food.

There is an unwinding in being force fed

that coats the inside of my skin

tighter than what I had grown

a noose,  maybe,  I lay in.

I wait for the choking, the burning, to subside

Waiting to breathe and

unable to chew.

I'm so sorry.

Where did I go? Where did I go?

I knew there would be food later

I even wanted there to be food later

but I was grown to be eaten by an animal.

When he is done it is sympathy that lets me breathe,

but he is full so what is left over

gets shoved in his fridge

until someone finds me rotting.