Deipnophobic at a Dinner Date by Joelle Lamaie (17)

[Content warning: implicit sexual content and alcohol]

My teeth tear flesh from flesh,
exposing bloody veins untouched by flame 
and my blade-like bones
serrated as a hound’s.
And with every sound, 
I fear you believe that a monstrous grin will emerge from within me 
and my snarling voice might whisper across the table, 
“All the better to eat you with.” 

---

But a hound
has neither the hair that tangles with the slime and grit in its mouth
nor the fingers that pluck those fibers
from between its lips.
A hound does not fear its shape in the mirror the next morning or 
the way its belly swells when it has eaten or
the way that it will scrutinize every scrap it has consumed until 
it must pick and pick at its own skin 
to drown out the guilt
of being alive. 

So with you,
I choose the smallest fork 
like I’m picking flowers
for my funeral bouquet 
and a plate fragile enough 
to shatter beneath the weight of your gaze.

With you, 
every ounce is a burden, 
another crown of thorns 
growing from my skull.
My cross is every empty plate,
each a pyre of guilt 
waiting to be lit
by my own hands.

My final words uttered before every first bite:
“All the better to eat with you.
Amen.”