IOU (Poetry Preview)

can of worms

there's a desire to be eaten, to be swallowed and

chewed down, sucked dry to the bone. the feast

of a god, the last supper.

             to lay down,

spread open before their feet

           and picked apart,

                  dissected to feel the burn –

             the fire.

the hands gentle, fingers wringing out what's

left of you — is this love?

it's hunger, they mouthed. human instinct, eat

or be eaten. survival of the fittest. do we love in

order to survive? is it only our bodies we have

to offer? do we rot for love?

picked apart to be eaten,

                           sucked dry to the bone —

is this love?

and when there's nothing left to stir, are we

rewarded for the sacrifice? when we crawl out

of their stomachs, all teeth and skin, and no

other way to remain clean, are we still hailed for?

is desire nothing more than being swallowed?

is this my body—

                    my wine, my blood,

                                          my salvation—

do we love, to offer?

        do we love, to take?

                      picked apart and left to rot,

sucked empty, a dead prey in the prairie,

glossed over from when love proclaimed it as a

sacrifice and held it down by the neck—

is this all you have to offer?

                         do we rot, for love?

           do we die, for love?

do we have no say at all, nothing but bodies

that fill the hunger, quench the drought, feed the fire,

spat out right after, gurgled and left to

         decompose, asking if this is all for love —

are we really bodies,

                   or are we nothing at all?

"Can of Worms"

© Rizu Lu
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