Girl-Eater
Look — I could’ve christened the crow by myself if you would’ve let me. I tend to drip with holy water when God isn’t watching, and being the eldest daughter, he’s often not. When the apple splintered down the staircase and landed in a pool of honey I made dessert, even if it took a while to cook. So, when I didn’t lick the salt out of you, it wasn’t because I was scared that my tongue might sizzle, but because I didn’t find you to be over-seasoned.
I want maple syrup on my pancakes
and I want a girl spread all over me like melting butter. and I want to be raked through like the sun spitting gasps of light across whimpering early morning trees who drip to surrender. and I want our teeth chipping away at the sweetness of our bread-crumbling Sundays; and I want her to want; I want her throat dripping into sticky words lodged inside her stomach, like a bird’s nest of all the ways she wants to ruin — and I want raspberry lemonade and those long short seconds of tasting each other’s breath and I want the way the waves must rush to feel her skin.
and I’ll say, “You are the root that is knotting me into this deep, desperate whatever. Tie me up tighter.”
Aliyah Knight is a multidisciplinary writer and filmmaker currently studying screen production at AFTRS. Their latest short films ‘home bodies’ and ‘Goodbye Mr. Wilde’ will be premiering later this year. When she isn’t writing or onset, you can probably find her eating eggplant dumplings and rewatching Bridesmaids.
