zaftigg

I can't be worried about context. Perhaps I should be more inclined to. But I can't. Today, I refuse to be held accountable for my words. Their source, a mystery. Their sought after goal, nothing I would care to repeat in present company.

Know this. As a performer, I speak, act, move, interact, imitate and rise above to elicit a response. That broad general interaction is addicting. No single specific voice to be held accountable to. Just a muffled general answer with no discernably (new word) fixed maw (old word. Great word).

That said:

I am insatiable. And my own body betrays any modesty of slowing down for polite company.

I first noticed it, hrmmm, about 13 years ago? I was alone in my room and I could smell it. REALLY smell it for the first time. Defining "it," now, is harder than it may appear. It isn't my skin, per se. It isn't my blood, exactly. It isn't the secretions from my swollen puss, in total. It isn't my mildly offensive pits, overall. It isn't the taste of my saliva, absolutely. It isn't the vile stew slurry growing in my bowels, in every respect. It is, however, just me. But christ! That sounds so arrogantly poetic and trite.

But that's what it was. The intoxicating mixture. I wasn't expecting anything, that first night. Sliding my tongue over my shoulder, the salt and saliva and wetness echoing back between different varieties of sensors (I get all of that shit confused sometimes). I crooked my head, just slightly, mind you, and pulled a muscle in my neck as my teeth latched on to my breast flesh and I bit, and tore, and pulled. For, I needed to experience all the senses. Taste and touch through the external weren't enough, either. I wanted that unknown part of myself, that secretly and autonomously monitors my day to day... I wanted that part to taste and touch me. I wanted it to interpret me. And digest me. And, ultimately, expel me for my own reflection.

So I tore and chewed and swallowed. And that was the first night.

I could go for months, back then. Letting the scar tissue bond over and seal the insides up so I could have another go. Sometimes the same area. Sometimes different ones.

Once my mother found a mark. And we never spoke of it. She would make off-hand comments in the third person about how she disapproved. But I always knew, this was for me, not her. Even still. I was able to retain a modicum of modesty. I needed to be able to play all public and pretend I was feeling and thinking all the same things as everyone else. But my feelings and thoughts have been inextricable for some time now. And other people bore me. They don't look like they taste very good at all.

But I tore and chewed and swallowed, moderately, until I was about 21, I guess.

I stood in front of the mirror one night, fondly remembering my taste, my fingers running over scar tissue (new sensations!) when I realized I never wanted to step foot outdoors again. I suddenly became giddy, like I never had before. Light-headed and dizzy and open to endless possibilities. I began tearing out piece of flesh after flesh. My upper arm. My inner thigh. The top of my foot. My sagging stomach. My right nipple. The side of my wrist. And on and on until I began to see mySelf. This intricate network of delectable possibilities all contracting and writhing, just a mouthful away from my skin.

The gall bladder and appendix were the first to go, and exquisitely bitter and slimy. I slid each one out, twisting and turning connecting points until the joint tissue deadened and weakened for me to pinch and slice with my finger nails. Running them along my flesh, my outer and inner selves consciously and autonomously reuniting. I was so excited, I didn't chew much at all, and I parted my abdominal wall muscles to see them bulge and slide through my GI tract.

I haven't been outside since that night.

I've been wasting away for the last 5 years. I've learned to ration, though. And I've found that if my eyes are bigger than my stomach at a particular meal, I can freeze my leftovers. and throw them in the crockpot the next day, driving myself mad for a taste as the aroma soaks in my skin.

I still have most of the function of my right arm and I don't touch my hand much at all. I learned from losing the left how valuable that opposable thumb and shit is.

I tried something new two nights ago that is terribly new and exciting. I cracked my lower left leg off and cut the bones in half. Have you ever tasted marrow? sucked it right out? creamy and salty and warm. And boiling the bone in some water really makes for a nice base to a stew. I'm having a hard time, though, reaching my stove since then. I have very little muscle control left in my right leg and now the left is severely compromised. I fear I may have to go solely raw again.

I realize that this all seems like it needs some orgasmic climax, yes? Like I'll trail off as though I've eaten something irreplaceable or vitally necessary to sustain my body. But I'm going to disappoint you. Because, in the end. I'm not sure as this is all that detrimental. Or rather just a particular means to an end, where the end is inevitable.

I can no longer gauge my own existence on my memory of others'. It has stopped making sense. I'm driven, now, solely by my hunger and my need to sustain myself to satiate my hunger.