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It's growing inside of me, this thing without a name. No one believes me but I can feel it in there. Its blunt claws scratch lightly at my belly.
And soon it will have teeth.
A malignant parasite, it feeds from my body. From my blood. I am being sapped away and can do nothing except watch with helpless terror as it swells my skin drum-taut. Sometimes I'm sure I can see its evil little face pressing out, leering at me.
And, oh sweet Jesus, soon the teeth.
Then it will feed and feed and, once full, it will tear through my flesh and breathe and screech and drip saliva from black little gums and then . . . oh then.
Already its slick, bulbous skull rolls inside of me, and I know the greasy snuffling of its nostrils and the eager clutch of its paws. It is my fledgling sin, my voracious spawn, my intimate death.
And no one will believe.
Do you believe?
Doctors chuckle smugly behind their files as they show me grainy images on a screen and tell me it's a boy. Nurses squeeze my hand.
Congratulations.
My husband has painted the room sky-blue. A teddy bear sits on the pillow and plastic aeroplanes wheel and dip from the ceiling. Wooden blocks dangle their coloured letters over the crib.
Never too early to learn.
Never too late to die.
Soon now, before the teeth.
The navel is the weakest point, and the skewer shakes as I press it there. Or is it my hand? I crouch on a towel to catch the blood; dark blue, to swallow the stains. Will it hurt?
but it will be dead and I will be safe
and we will be safe together
my husband and I
from the thing
the sinful thing that would bear his name
but not his genes
and I think of this
and smile and laugh as --
Oh sweet Jesus, the teeth!

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Lyn (Omphalaphobe) Battersby