CW: body horror

Ripping the ribs from my chest like Adam becoming Eve in this garden I tend for myself body made from clay but not of clay a fragile construction of flesh and blood and sinew driven by who knows how many years of evolution that tell me to drink eat sleep fuck thoughts tender and made new by each day but old by countless others what’s one more rib I ask of G-d and hear no response so I cover myself in the clay I was born in and made from and bake myself in the sun until I am new with skin so smooth that I could slip right from your hands and be dashed on the rocks below thoughts like a waterfall the brain is just another muscle so why does it want to hurt so much. Heart pumping at two hundred beats per minute what’s another rib I ask of G-d but hear no response so I take it into my own hands grasping at the ragged bone on the ground below and piercing my stomach like another saint blood red but not like wine this blood is just blood this flesh is just flesh soft and cruel what’s another rib I ask of G-d

Evelyn Bauer is a writer, bookseller, and wine punk living on stolen land in so called 'New England.' She is often found reviewing books, petting cats, and listening to experimental music. You can find some of her tabletop roleplaying games at https://eeveeholdsredbull.itch.io/, her poems in Moral Crema, Corporeal Lit Mag, and Not Deer Mag. Find her on twitter at @neo_cubist.