Butter Honey Pig Bread

by Francesca Ekwuyasi

She is a vast garden of water-hungry flowers in a land of perpetual drought.

And that was her principal vice, wasn’t it? Desiring to be entirely consumed by any and every moment that quenched the hungry howling loneliness that sat curled down down inside herself. If she could climb down the throat of an orgasm and rest, eternal, in its belly, and if she could sink into and be sealed beneath every delicious bite of every delightful thing—oh, how she would, she would, she would. But life pushes forth, persistently, the afterglow of even the most transcendent climax will fade; every tasty thing is digested and turns to shit. Mundanity is persistent. Periods must be dealt with, blood rots, dishes must be done, everything tarnishes and ends. It’s just that beginnings are so seductive, the promise of possibilities.

A scared nineteen-year-old, still a child, newly recruited into armed robbery, fingers twitchy with nervousness, was asked to prove his loyalty, or be killed. Does it matter what made him a killer?

Life is an ambivalent lover. One moment, you are everything and life wants to consume you entirely. The next moment, you are an insignificant speck of nothing. Meaningless.

The ocean never swallows a person whose leg it does not touch.