etiquette

You feed them with your hands still wet from birthblood,

offering pieces of what never belonged to you.

Call it duty, call it love,

but we know rot when we smell it.

There’s a banquet in the basement—

maggots in the gravy,

polished silver spoons sunk deep in bone marrow stew.

You smile like the host you think you are.

We choke politely.

The tablecloth is stitched from apologies you never made.

Each fold reeks of “not my fault” and “it had to be done.”

You keep cutting the meat thinner,

like slicing it small makes it moral.

(We’ve all eaten someone, haven’t we?

You just licked your fingers while we did it.)

I saw the way you sharpened your words

on the edge of my silence.

Called it honesty.

Called it help.

But your mouth is full of splinters—

you bit the truth and spat it like bones.

And we wear those bones now,

like medals. Like proof.

You gave us cages

and called them heirlooms.

You lit the fire

and blamed the smoke for choking us.

And still you ask why we won’t sit at your table.

Why our hunger stinks of refusal.

You never fed us.

You devoured us

slow.

With clean hands.