Deadra Acosta

June 3 20XX

Househole

THE FORK

The first image is me seated at the counter, alone, furthest seat to the left. The fluorescent bulb is in front of me, throned on top of the window. The sky is a fresh coffee stain. The moon is a refrigerated egg. The baby chicken is dead now, all brains and bones snuffed, the stain of this light the form and consistency of menstrual sludge.

The electricity is in front of me and dimming everyday now. The dirt-dark envelopes the area against my back. I wouldn’t see a hand on my neck until it’s too late. I couldn’t scream until I ate the fingers on my face, swallowing them bruised, brutal like the carpet crushing me standing.

My palms wince against the breath palpitations of the counter, living like flesh as a parasite inside of me like worms, this house my infection, my body, my whole. There is a bowl of dirty rice and my fork ejecting its parts from the cold center. I microwaved it for two cycles and gave up. I knew it wasn’t hot, but this is good enough.

There is the same fly on the refrigerator as last week, and the next. I’ve eaten with it since, and will continue to. All other motherfuckers disappear into and out of bed and then in their cars all day and night. So really, it is only me and the insects living here.

I look away as saliva and bone disintegrates this bite into nothing. I’ve finished another fraction, only. Reflex urges repetition, and the vessel’s floral print drugs me into it. I put my eyes on the face of my fork and see the gizzard gore flexing into the sky. The grubs are sore and penetrated by my steel member. They chafe together like lovers attacking each other naked.

I stutter to fly-feast on this bowl of excrement. It cleans my taste buds and wipes the smell of rotting feces on my cleansed memory. I am soiled by the sausage that I cannot differentiate from dog dick and the rice staring blind at me like larvae.