Tuesday, 8 July 2025

Matriphagy

Centipedes practice matriphagy.

Not a myth.

Not a metaphor.

A mother — devoured by her children

for their first meal.


No poetry written.

No Mother's Day observed.

No tearful obituaries.

Just flesh.

Given.

Eaten.

Gone.


And just like that,

she disappears.

No shrine.

No sainthood.

No sob story.


But humans —

they mythologize motherhood

like it was a war they never enlisted in.

As if birth was a betrayal

by their own body.

As if nine months of choice

were stolen time.


They birth children

and demand altars.

Gratitude draped in guilt.

Indebtedness disguised as love.


So what

if human mothers

consume their children in reverse?

Not with teeth —

with silence, shame,

and a rusted dagger called

"after all I’ve done for you."


They call it sacrifice.

But sacrifice doesn’t invoice the living.

It doesn’t linger in accusations.

It doesn’t wake you up in the middle of your 30s

and whisper: “You owe me.”


Centipedes don’t do that.

They die once.

Clean.

Complete.

Undocumented.


But human mothers —

they die in installments

across your choices.

They stain your vocabulary.

They own your mirrors.

They say “I love you”

and mean: “Stay broken where I can see you.”


The thing about humans is:

they name everything others do

with surgical precision.


But their own rituals?

They call them culture.

They call them tradition.

They wrap hunger in silk

and pass it down like scripture.


Because once you play blind,

truth becomes treason.

And humans love truth

only when it isn’t theirs.


Just like the mothers

they were birthed of —

who pass on trauma like heirloom, 

teach silence as maturity,

and punish disobedience

as betrayal of blood.


Centipedes don’t punish.

They feed.

And vanish.


But humans —

they leave bite marks

in your decisions.

Bruises in your identity.

Wounds that answer to their names

even after they’re gone.

No comments:

Post a Comment