I Am a Very Fat Woman (by Rebecca Bates)
When the scale reads 107.8, she goes to the kitchen and shoves almonds in her mouth. She clamps down and many clatter across linoleum. She stomps the rogue almonds into a pulp and says, “I want to eat that.” The kitchen cabinets are packed with fruit now rotten. Her teeth pierce mealy apple flesh and mush streaks down her chin and neck, pools in her clavicle. She buries her face in bags of quinoa and inhales. Grain wedges between her molars and she rinses with sour milk. She leaves the house. She eyes a fire hydrant on the street and says, “I want to eat that.” She unhinges her jaw and it swings in front of her chest and then she squats and swallows the fire hydrant whole. A boy child watches. She approaches him and yanks him to her face by the hair and says, “I am going to eat you.” The boy squirms wildly, and cries, “No, I won’t tell. I swear, I swear.” But she unhinges her jaw once again and consumes him, slurps him down all the same.
I am Rebecca
Bates. Here to devour your
offspring. Worship me.
(Rebecca Bates is a graduate student in English with a creative writing emphasis.)
