Content warning: sexual violence
And while it was happening, with J behind me and my cheek pressed hard against the pocked linoleum floor, I spied a worm there. Rusted, red, moving over the dirty blue tiles, squinching and releasing the muscles of its long body, squirming itself toward me. Slowly, so slowly at first, that I prayed its slowness was a sign. Had it wandered in from the yard or hitched onto the dog’s fur? Or was it here to promise death was coming?
And while it was happening, with J behind me, my cheek laid hard against the linoleum floor, the worm passed near my eye. Shined over with slime, it crested the soft skin of my lips, and I knew not to fight it, like when J weighted his knee onto the small of my spine, I knew the worm would find a way to crawl inside me.
And all the while it was happening, J behind me, my cheek shoved hard against the linoleum, the worm cold and sweaty on my naked face, I prayed about what part of my body would die first and that the worm would find a way to disappear me forever. But when J really got going and the worm tumbled back onto the pocked floor, curling into itself for protection, like a dog would or a girl being kicked, I told myself that the tiles tasted of dark soil and I told myself the air smelled of cut grass, and I told myself the worm was here to teach me something about burrowing deep / so deep / no one would ever find me again, and after J had finished, his boots glancing near my face, black on blue tile, I told myself the worm wasn’t bothered at all about being crushed beneath him.
“Worm” was the winner of the narrative poetry competition of A SmokeLong Summer 25.
