Blood drips down through her finger tips.
Wounds gape open, like holes, so deep they seem bottomless.
She’s tempted to drop something into it,
maybe if she presses her ear close enough,
She’ll know how deep it goes.
The blood is up to her elbows as she pushes thin cotton into
the open wound.
She seems almost satisfied by the squelching of her fingers
in the still bleeding hole. She’s feels like
a surgeon, or maybe a cannibal,
As she digs her fingers further in,
She feels tempted to wiggle them around, to start pulling and prying,
Like a teen boy in science class, dissecting a frog for the first time.
Thoughts cross her mind that she never even considered before
She wants to lick her hands, like a father after devouring ribs.
She wants to start pulling stuff out, eating it,
The way a vulture would.
She feels nasty and gross.
Who would dare think of such a thing?
But the temptation remains
Even as the body below begins to stir,
She wants to tear them open more.
Like a true carnivore,
She wants more and more and more.
She pictures it in her head,
Leaning down and pulling the wound open more
Taking a bite out of the flesh,
Tearing, and chewing, and repeat.
She almost does it, too.
But the eyes open, a bright blue, wide and afraid
And she pulls her shaking bloody hands out of the hole.
And says,
“Let’s hope that helps the bleeding.”