Open Mouth, Empty Home
She sucked her thumb till it split the skin, fourteen years and nothing in,
The fridge went empty, the milk went bad,
the cupboard a grave for the hope she had.Mother left when the rent was due,
father faded like morning dew,
So every touch became a hunger, every word a silent thunder,
No hand reached out, just a fist or belt,
she learned to starve on what she felt.
She kissed for burgers, kissed for fries,
fucked for a night in a stranger’s eyes,Her lips sold cheap, her jaw went numb,
her first taste salt, her last taste rum,She learned the ritual—mouth for bread,
cash for a bed or a place to shedThat ache that chews through bone and brain,
a sucking void that has no name.She let them come and let them go,
and counted blessings she’d never know.
She chewed on cracked plastic spoons,
bit memory from the cheap motel’s cracked tile,
Gnawed fingernails for flavor when the cabinets stood bare
and the night grew hostile.Hunger, her only god, waited in the drywall,
prayed in the rotting insulation,
Each echo in the pipes a ghost of breakfast that never came,
a mother’s vanished incantation.Thumb-sucking grown to a ritual,
her jaw raw from every empty promise,
Sucking at her own wrist, at pennies,
at the corner of pillows for something honest.
First love was hunger, second was heat,
third was a mouth that tasted of gasoline—Each boyfriend a vending machine
that never delivered, but demanded she smile,
stay clean.She learned the currency early: lips parted for kindness,
mouth open for mercy,Swallowing pride with stranger’s spit,
her name lost between the slur and the “thirty.”She would suck for chicken bones,
for ramen packs, for anything to coat the pain,Bite her lip raw for a couch, a ride,
a fistful of fries in the back of a van in the rain.
Every home is a vanished shape;
she knows the blueprint by the taste of the locks,
Mouth wrapped around excuses—she gave head in alleys for socks,
for a box.The neighbors turned away, church folks locked their doors,
and cops just rolled their eyes,
So she sucked down answers in empty lots,
wore bruises on her knees as alibis.Christmas, Thanksgiving,
just different kinds of hunger—she gave blowjobs for stuffing and pie,
Her name a rumor passed around by men who liked the way she never asked why.
Lips open wide for a taste, a tease, a bite of pity, a hope for ease,
She moaned for gas, she sucked for rides, kissed for a shower, fucked for pride,
Her mouth the only thing she owned, her silence bartered, her body loaned,
A blowjob prayer, a bitten tongue, a meal denied,
another rungDown ladders made of men and rooms and doors that close
before she blooms.
She kissed for heat when the lights went out,
sucked for a bed when the pipes froze up,
She learned to smile with nothing left, to feed on spit and shame and theft,
Her mouth the currency of pain, her hunger never earned a name,
Each night she whispered to the wall, open mouth—no home at all.
Rent is due and lips are spent, she trades the hunger for the rent,
No one listens, no one cares, every tongue just stops and stares,
Her story ends where it began: a mouth still open,
an empty hand.She chews on memory, swallows air, the world moves on,
she isn’t there,
Just open lips, a hollow sound—empty home, nobody found.
She learned to beg without a word, to plead with parted lips,
to worship food stamps like gods,
Her tongue a tool, her mouth a grave for stories she never told,
for oddsShe never won. They called her a slut, a leech, a user,
a whore—never a child,
Never a daughter, never the hunger’s child,
never the one left behind whileMom fucked off with a trucker,
Dad traded love for dope,
She bit her own arm to stifle the sound and survived on the taste of hope.
Sucking frost from windows in winter, licking condensation to fill the ache,
Mouth pressed to the wood where a father once stood,
praying for someone to takeHer emptiness,
fill it with something besides cum and regret,
But every man just left her hungrier, mouth open, throat tight,
heart wet.She swallowed shame like it was medicine, made hunger into ritual,
a sacrament,
Kissed her bruises better with chapped lips,
made peace with what abandonment meant.
Some nights she moaned for company, some nights just to fill the space,
Sometimes for warmth, sometimes just to eraseThe memory of a fridge light,
a kitchen chair, a mother humming over boiling water,
Sometimes she’d bite her own tongue till blood filled her mouth
and made her feel hotter,
A mouth is a gun when you’re starving—a loaded question,
a trigger pulled by strangers,
She learned to taste the difference between love and danger.
She kissed for bus fare, for tampons, for soup, for a place to crash,
Sometimes for a smile, sometimes for a handshake
and a handful of cash.No one ever asked her what she’d eaten,
no one ever called her name without expecting a swallow,
She sucked her way through adolescence,
traded hunger for hollows.Her diary was a menu written in scars and lips,
Each page a memory of the taste of a man’s hands, the ache of his grip.
Even now, she dreams of kitchens that never lock,
Of kisses that come with bread, not cock,
Of rooms with heat, with soup on the stove,
Of open mouths that learn to say “enough,”Of hunger sated,
of homes that don’t disappear—But she wakes up every morning with hunger in
her mouth and the same old fear:The world will always love an open mouth,
But never the empty home it comes from.