eden by Gianna Voce

the blood in our hair is nothing personal, and the rotting bodies at our feet hold the birthright of decades. somewhere east of the sun and west of the moon, we scrape bones for marrow and guzzle pomegranate wine, laughing as vegetation flattens beneath our bare heels. we are but the first to sink our teeth into yielding flesh and the first to press our mouths together, grab my waist as apples become mush on the ground below us — such a beautiful prison for the women who bang their fists against the flowers. we clutch our wrists and hear the brittle bones splintering like a stained-glass prayer, grinning. we are what every generation dare not be and in our eyes, we see the skeleton of decay, snakes slithering out of our sockets.