Hungry Morbidity

By Jemma Green

CONTENT WARNING: Death

There are flies all on my face

laying their maggot-eggs

in my eyes

and black ants eating

the flesh of my stomach, thighs

rot-fed on my body.

Skin-boned, I swallow

soil in my lungs

crisp and boundless

as winter wind

caught under roots ripping up

my nailbeds.

I am decaying

in a hole in the ground,

buffet to the earth,

hungry as I am

dead

and eager to feed.

When spring thaws

my burial, some animal

will come and bite

what the insects left of me

and fill itself with my body while

I am consumed in morbidity.

Jemma Green is an emerging writer and editor based in Meanjin/Brisbane, Australia with publications in Glass Magazine and Scratchthat. She is the winner of a 2022 AWC writing contest and is currently studying a BFA in Creative Writing at QUT. She works fluidly between poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, with an artistic focus on recreating images through words and exploring both the inner and outer worlds of human experience.

Instagram: @jemmawritess

TikTok: @jem.s.g