Reared On Gore
Written By: Spencer Keene I was weaned, at the ripe age of three, off of formula and onto offal, blood-drenched giblets of gizzard, liver, and disemboweled windpipe.
Reared On Gore
Written By: Spencer Keene
I was weaned, at the ripe age of three,
off of formula and onto offal,
blood-drenched giblets of gizzard,
liver, and disemboweled windpipe.
I craved the sweet sick of ichor,
the grainy tang of raw marrow
sucked fresh from a broken bone.
Nothing crossed my little lips that
hadn’t once belonged to a body.
Not a morsel of carrot or lettuce,
not a wedge of apple or melon.
Fed exclusively on milk and flesh,
I developed a mild bout of scurvy
and a stubborn case of gout.
Black beetle teeth dropped from
my jaw like beads of onyx rain.
By five, I was lurching around on
a painful pair of inflamed feet,
consumed in carnivorous addiction.
At six came the intervention.
By seven, I was able to choke
down a single crown of broccoli.
My diet at nine is more balanced,
boring but for my biweekly relapse
into the comforts of cannibalism.
Spencer Keene (he/him) is a writer from Vancouver, BC. His poetry and short fiction have been featured in a variety of print and digital publications, including Radon Journal, Suburban Witchcraft, Divinations Magazine, and Candlelit Chronicles. Find more of Spencer's work at skeenewriter.com.