If Nothing Else, Reliable by Sarah Gay
Read by Conner Arnold
To her, hunger was a comfort.
Perhaps it was the idea of her stomach
Devouring itself —
A sick, maligned Ouroboros
Turning her inside out like a sock puppet
So she could finally look at her reflection and
Agree that her outside finally matched the inside.
Or perhaps it was the way it made her feel
So heavy with possibility. As if, within her body,
An infant universe squirmed, waiting to be named
And filled with Milky Way ideas. Constellations of
Capillaries in a Void-womb of dark energy.
There is a certain power to being empty.
Maybe that mortal gnawing simply reminded her of
Her humanity;
Made her appreciate
The nuance of a species that is so
Willing to both create and consume itself.
Good for something.
In control.
And yet . . .
This shapeless memory, buried deep:
There will come a day when you will walk
Out of your home,
Lock The Door . . .
Maybe you’ll look back. Maybe you won’t. But
You’ll never set foot on that doorstep again.
There will come another day for a final embrace.
One last moment shared . . .
Perhaps it is polite.
Perhaps it is desperate. But in Saying That Goodbye
You’ll walk in opposite directions for the rest of your lives.
Never underestimate the length of a moment.
And she remembered Locking The Door.
And she remembered Saying That Goodbye.
She understood how a moment could last a lifetime.
But this hunger that she felt, it stayed.
It was a certainty.
Not a memory to hold her
Or a moment to haunt her
It was now.
A permanent something to carry with her
Until she finally let it kill her.
And even when she hated it–even when
She scorned it,
Cursed it,
Wanted to rip it from her belly or stuff it full of
Foraged nothings
Like sweetgrass
Or drywall
She knew it would always come creeping back in . . .
If nothing else, reliable.
