from nerves, I cannibalise my fingers
my blood clots, and dries out
crusty and painful
yet I keep on pressing, biting
because it gives me focus
a sick type of satisfaction,
a sense of control.

I whine tears leak out, my eyelids stuttering,
Tired
my fingers bit, bone exposed and ******
my fingernails and fingerprints
all gone,
remains lay in my stomach
acid consuming the scraps of skin
this is what I call my very own cannibalism.

Listen
to these green plants
pleading
beseeching

you would think
they'd be used to it by now
but every year the same old thing

look the rain is finished folks
you're on your own now
nine months before the next shower

this is how leaves suffocate
see the gray dust clogging their pores
hear them choking
under a wind thrown blanket
this is how they drown

brittle and crackling the grasses
soon the weight
of a starving grasshopper
will be enough to snap
them

shrubs will dump
their curled up castoffs
earthwards
scribbled twigs alone
will remain

from now on
only the thieving airplants
will thrive
viral invaders
******* sap from reluctant hosts
who can ill afford
to accommodate them

now patient rocks
are emerging from cover
each a palette of vivid lichens
sundecks for snakes and lizards
now that the clamouring grass
is gone

the land lies baking
withdrawn
curling
into herself

even the air
sighs
slumps

soon fire will come
to cannibalise
the undergrowth
play chasey
through the dry grass
send ants scurrying
downstairs
flip a nod
to the big old cactuses
tickle the toes
of the mesquites-
who will stand stoic
observing the pillage
around their hot feet
and shrug
resigned
seen it all before
they are above it all really

fire
will play homage
to their indifference
lay down
a black velvet carpet


wind
will whistle up
tiny tornadoes of ash
to pirouette
and perish

everyone
will accept the inevitable
eventually
and just knuckle down
to wait it out

in a state of trance
floating
                  on a dream
                                      of rain



Tricia Lambert
Mexico
Nov 2010

They flit through this phantom and each
ghost lights a lantern that shines,
even molecules mock me.

I rock back and forth and
mentally scribble
then I dribble things out
through my mouth.

Sigh?
I could cry with the torment,
lend me the wings
let me fly.

She could cannibalise me as
she flies in with the ghosts
and surprise me
with lights in her eyes.

Sighs,
I could leave all the torment behind.

Radioactive dreams
Got me bursting at the seams
Life is strange as it seems
Neon confusions
Got me coming to conclusions
I undress the illusions

Love bombed lover
You can be replaced with another
Friends who ain’t friends
We all meet unsavoury ends
I’m a victim
To a system

We roll the dice,
Loaded like guns,
Against our luck
And we stare down snake eyes
As we tell ourselves some lies
About our ******* luck

Glitz and glamour
Sugary ******* and diamonds
Hundred-dollar bills
Become hundred-dollar fines
And hundred-dollar fines
Become one-dollar bills
They say don’t eat the rich
Because one day you’ll cannibalise yourself

There is an idea
Called the American Dream
And we’re just living in the fallout
Of such contagious, radioactive dreams

When a boy slept in my bed
I felt like a hostage.
When a girl slept in my bed
I felt a *******.

He left marks on my neck,
A smell so repellent.
He was rotting in there
While girls give clean air.

His hair was long
But girls sing songs
Of butterflies and care;
Cannibalise my stare.