So, she’s mud-curdled blood when they find her on the doorstep. Hot skin, volcanic blisters, runny metal shooting out. I would have told her it’s important to shave off all the rock-bits; leave the flesh nice and fresh, let the rats do their suck-thing. But, then again, she didn’t want my advice. Wanted teeth in my tummy, wanted guts tumbling down, and… look, sweetness, listen. It wasn’t like this to start with. Her skin on my skin was the sweet kind of sickness. Her bite on my cheek was more trickling than tasting; honey-spun gum trailing slime down my necklace. If she’d told me, back then, my tongue would have bought it. That she’d choked on my molar, that my finger was filling her: stretching her open, making beast of her breastplate. That my bone was a bullet; she needed it out. I settled for sorry: three gulps and a meltdown. Index in her acid. A goodbye. Final bow. Tasted me on my toothbrush for months after that. Would suck down on my knuckles to peel out her frown. 

So, there’s a girl, a girl-eater, a killer. I’ve buried her name between my cunt and my crown. She walks around hungry, hungered and wondering. Walks around swirling my soul round her mouth. Walks around feeding, teasing, taunting. Walks til she kneels, keels, crumbles. There’s a girl, a gunshot wound, splattering. Gasp on the walls, ache on the carpet, want on the windows, crawling, climbing. I swallow my starving, ration my spit, try not to think of her throat, thrown open. Start chewing on fire-things, messing with molten, glow sticks from she-kisses shredded to sparks. She walks round for years, licking stones out of kidneys, bag full of birthmarks tickling her tummy. She tastes girls like toothpaste, and I try not to measure my two-inch skin-missing against big MISSING posters. 

But still, I am bubbling, lumps on my arm-twigs, dribbling with bits that she won’t twist her tongue with. I’m meat good for cooking, loose canons crisping, skin cleaned up for a good crack like the recipe says. But still, she don’t come back with butter. Her lips stay sucking heartstrings from the others, and… look, sweetness, listen. It weren’t always like this, but nowadays it is. My limpness all shook up by ghost teeth on tits. She’s mud-curdled blood when they find her on the doorstep. It’s the first time I’ve seen her heart-skip smile in years. I think about feeding her headfirst to fireplace, think about teasing her lumps from her knees. I think that her skin should be smoother for me, that flesh-lumps won’t undo my bits like her wrists. She’s empty-chest, shredded breast body on tarmac. She whimpers. I wring. Two girl-fires. We eat.