by Chimedum Ohaegbu
(Content Warnings: implied abuse)
distracted, i mistake one bottle for another and squeeze honey on the sponge, sweetening dishes as i scrub. wilting kale misses the garbage disposal, slicks onto a honeyplate, bloom aurified, post-kiss, as garden salad. the cherry tomatoes pop up plump as eyes, spiralling the moonshaped midas so swift, bright. and juicy; they horrify. i eat them out of sight, feel safer again. later i serve gazpacho, Your favourite, You’ve said. i listen, see? Your hometongue discerns—tastes too much salt—speaks softly of worthlessness, mine. i nod to the beating. it’s easier. after supper i’m honey-bound, unspooling gold to froth in the sink. peace: to burst and shimmer like these bubbles. instead i feed dishware the freezer-burned, the curdled and molding, that which rots—all blossom. now for the rest of me. on porcelain my heart looks princely, but cut her chambers agape and oh, she’s putrid with blue lamentation. i liberate her cousins, i arrange them artfully, i’m a vivisect wistful and senseless. almost: once plating’s gilt and unguilted me, I listen, see, for Your footsteps. of course You’re good; You’ve never hit me though You could. still, better safe than I’m sorry. while You’re out I set Your hometongue twitching on towering plates: the strongest muscle, its curling devastates. yes it’s but pinkness not rosy headlines’ violence yes You’ve never taught me my sticks and stones yes I’m lucky You’ve told me I’m lucky (listen: I listened) but I’m awfully small, aren’t I? whittled by licking if legally unbruised. peace: acknowledgement, any. hope-addled, wrathful, I welcome You home, see you’re unchanged. unchangeable.
I wish —
—
—
but it’s dinnertime. gazpacho again. you feast, I feast. in cleaned bowls, our meal’s reddest roundest residents remember their relations, brim the best of eggplant, potato, nightshade. spicy, somewhat, but I’ve swallowed unkinder poisons. your stainless-steel spoon clatters down from on high. if you’re not going to finish that, honey, may I?
CHIMEDUM OHAEGBU recently graduated from UBC with a bachelor’s degree in adoring hummingbirds (and an English literature/creative writing degree). She’s Uncanny Magazine’s managing and poetry editor, and her work is published or forthcoming in Strange Horizons and F&SF, among others. Find her at chimedum.com.
moonshaped midas can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 4.1.
