Hunger

She sways in the warm summer breeze like a sheaf of wheat, her bare feet planted in the spent soil. The moon is just a wink and her eyes have not yet adjusted; she wonders whether she’ll be swallowed by the dark earth beyond the oval of thin porch light, whether it is thirsty enough to open up and drink her down, down. It would be cool in the earth, and firm. Quiet.

The house, too, is quiet beneath the hum of cicadas and the whisper of breeze, but its quiet is anticipatory. Its quiet is a held breath, the suspended moment between booted footstep as they draw near to you: One. Two. One. Two.

The house knows how to swallow her into its silence. Many times it has opened its maw around her, and in eating it always grows hungrier. She can feel it now in the prickle of her neck, can feel the jaw opened wide behind her, the teeth poised to draw her back in and swallow her down, down. She wonders if this time it would crush her first with its dull molars, if this would be the final digestion.

The thirsty earth shivers at her just beyond the porch light, its grains of parched dirt rustling in the breeze. “I’ll drink you down, down,” the earth promises, “I’ll sip you like a glass of cool water.”

Her foot lifts, and then the other: one, two. “Alright,” she tells the earth as she steps into darkness, “okay,” because it sounds better to be sipped. She’s tired of being eaten.