“ACCORDING TO JULIA KRISTEVA in the Powers of Horror, the abject refers to the human reaction (horror, vomit) to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or between self and other. The primary example for what causes such a reaction is the corpse (which traumatically reminds us of our own materiality); however, other items can elicit the same reaction: the open wound, sewage, bugs etc.” 

This piece was written with Kristeva’s theory of Abjection in mind, this piece was meant to gross the reader out and remind the reader of their eventual decay and rot. To remind the reader that their life is futile, and though this doesn’t have any blatant horror, the Abjection is what makes this piece uncomfortable.

Trigger warning for blood, second person gore, bugs, decay etc.

An Ode to Kristeva.

You are a being full of sickness and filth. You are dead, so you do not feel the beetle chewing through your flesh and liver, through your brains and guts, finding nothing but more meat to burrow into. It is feasting on you. There’s a colony of worms living inside of your eyes, destroying what was living before they sink deeper into lungs webbed by spiders. A thick layer of mold grows in your stomach as ants crawl through the carpet of moss, eating what bits of food are left inside of it. A meal lies ahead for the worms as they journey into filth, the stench of vomit and liquified organs filling the small coffin which you’ve made for them. The rotten organs are burrowed into by the worms as they are bloodied and fattened with pus, the sound of squelching, consuming, hungry worms filling the dead silence of the coffin. 

The sight of worms eating, stuffing your dead body with their limp forms, slime and maggots filling every cavity in your body  would make you sick if you could see. The state of your eyes makes that prohibitive, though. You were a conglomerate of limp meat and fat, worms eating more and more and more as they burrow, faster and faster forevermore until there is nothing left of your rotten corpse but dirt and dust. Your cold, wet, slimy remains feel like ground meat and liquid goo. You feel a handful of worms, crawling in your hands as they dig and dig and dig into your flesh, looking for their next meal. The smell is vivaciously cruel, hot and tangy against your tongue, like rotten eggs and cow liver. The strong taste of iron with the texture of worms permeate your senses, on the precipice of too strong, and  yet barely there. Vomiting would only make it worse.

They crawl in and out, in and out, eating with no signs of ceasing their feast. It’s so cold, but so  warm from the worms and the beatles and the ants and the spiders and the maggots as they inhabit your corpse with nothing but the animalistic urge to feed. It’s repetitive and empty, emotionless and cruel as they continue to eat. You watch as they burrow into you, watch as they eat you, rendering you to nothing but slime. You used to be a person and now you just feed the cycle. They lay eggs in your flesh as smaller, leaner, infant worms feed on you and lay eggs again and again and again. You have done your due diligence and died nonetheless. Fought against the world and tried and turned into nothing but worm food at the end.

You cannot move, you cannot breathe or see or think, all you feel is the worms. The worms that are loud in their feast. The spiders that tickle you with their endless webs and eggs. The ants that crawl as they bring food home to their queen. The beetles that play in your liver like it’s mud. You are being loved, you are being held, you are feeding the world like you were born to do. The silt and pus and slime that cover your flesh is like a hug, and the kisses of the worms leaving holes in your flesh is welcoming. You rot. You sit, you decompose and you rot.