Swallowing Gods

Paralyzed by my shadow’s overbite,

I claw open your swollen mud cocoon.

Enshrined, spared from rot’s bloom.

Sun-flayed shrivel. Maggot breath.

Your skeleton, mundane as insect chatter.

No one would guess you’re my prize,

my salvation, my afterlife.

Hallowed, foraged flesh.

I unwrap you, ferryman—

the corrupting stench so ripe,

I gag,

yet you bleed sweet mercy.

You knead my organs into humanity;

without you,

I’d recoil down the slaughterhouse drain,

euthanized by my loneliness.

I pluck three tendrils from the knot—

they are my fated sisters,

each with her own

twisted offering

Of blue and white.

Tiny caps conceal

their fragile loveliness,

woven in their gills.

I gorge the fungi, one by one.

I pray no man witnesses—

this dirt-mouthed

cannibal feast.

Hurry, my priest.

The ritual cannot be undone.