To Be Devoured

by Sara Tantlinger

The body is never wrong for them. They devour it. They just eat. They are ugly, and I cannot blame them for this, cannot fault their design the way society faults mine, faults us all.

I have come to take comfort in the familiar surroundings. There is always a song here—the cicadas of summer, hooting owls in the fall, and coyotes howling in the dead of winter.

Maybe that was the worst part, how you can understand a stranger because you know their pain, because you helped cause their pain.

I need guidance to fill the empty ache in my body. Otherwise, I am forever starving for help, unsure of how to ask for it.