"The Giver" (With dramatic reading and mood music)

Literal and metaphorical horror examination of Jung's "Devouring Mother" trope. Inspired by Metamorphosis by the wonderful Weeping Iva.

Reading, music, and photo by Nobody the Poet

Some people say Mother Milk is a taker. But don’t believe them. Mother Milk gives more than anybody. Just ask her. And if she does take a little here and there, she'll tell you, it's really not that much.

Mother needs to survive too, doesn’t she? And what's a small surcharge for all the time and energy she has spent doting on her little adopted children.

Oh yes, Mother Milk is a giver.

She gives and she gives and she gives, like a spider giving away her fine strands of silk, while wrapping her prey in a cocoon. Binding them. "Stay in here little silkworm," she says, "safe with mommy. And I'll turn you into a big beautiful moth."

She traps them with her giving nature. Fattens them with her milk. Forcing her swollen breasts between their lips. “Drink up, little one! Drink up!” It’s too much milk. It’s thick. It goes down the wrong pipe, into their lungs. They gag. But their arms are bound in their cocoons and they can not stop themselves from gorging at her sloppy tit.

They are drowning in milk as thick as white paint. Convulsing. But still Mother Milk makes them drink.

The milk gets into her prey. Changes them, changes their bodies. Seals their mouths shut so they can not talk, can not object or refuse. Can not scream. And still she saturates them, bathing them in her milky marinade until it coagulates and hardens around their body like plaster.

Their bodies grow fat and swell in their cocoons, becoming heavy. Sluggish. And from their bodies sprout winds. Heavy fat wet wings dripping in Mother’s gluey milk. Leaving them with little room to breathe. And slowly but surely their cocoon gets tighter and tighter, until it starts to crush and smother.

They want to scream, to plead, to say, "Help me, Mother Milk!"

Only they no longer have a mouth.

And all this work? All this giving? Well it makes Mother peckish.

Her hunger grows, boils and roils her insides, consumes her. And the little silkworm covered in her milk, it starts to smell good. So good. Irresistible, really. It's plump and fat and marinating in Mother's delicious milky juices.

And so she says, "I've done so much for you, my little silkworm. I've kept you warm in my silk. Let you suckle the milk from my breast. Rubbed you with my aromatic juices... You wouldn't mind doing something for mommy in return, would you?

"It'll hardly hurt at all," she says, licking her lips. "All I want is a little nibble. Just one little nibble for mommy? That’s not asking too much, is it?"

She beams at you, a grin curling up at the corners of her red lips.

"Don't worry," she says. "It'll only hurt a little." Her grin widens. "Just tell mommy when she's eaten too much. Ah, but you can not speak! You have grown wings, but you have no mouth. What a shame."

Her grin widens.

"Spread them," she says, licking her lips, "your wings. Your heavy, fat wings."

You fight feebly as she grabs your milky white wings with her four free hands, her impossibly strong hands, using the other four to pin you mercilessly against the ground.

She spreads them, your pale, fat virgin wings, forcing them apart then up and over your head, folding you over, pinning your knees on either side of your head like a babe having its diaper changed.

"Hold still," she commands.

Her mouth hovers over your exposed abdomen. You feel her hot breath as she flicks her tongue into your tender parts to taste you. To taste your fear.

She smiles again. A coy, girlish smile. "You are growing, my little silkworm."

And you are. Blood is pooling in your exposed abdomen, engorging it before her hungry eyes.

Her smile grows. It grows and grows, impossibly wide. Grows until it can no longer contain her teeth. Rows and rows of impossibly sharp teeth. Reticulated teeth, like the mouth of a python.

"Don't worry," she says breathlessly, her naked chest heaving in anticipation, "Mommy will be gentle. Mommy will… take her time." She pushes your knees harder around your head, impossibly hard, holding you in place with the overwhelming force of her sheer unadulterated hunger. She licks you down the center of your exposed abdomen, exploring your crevices with her rough, barbed tongue, licking the pockets of flavor, the sweat and curdled milk, stretching her mouth out longingly around your entire exposed bottom and embracing your abdomen with her lips.

"Don't worry," she says in a muffled voice, her mouth half stuffed with your torso, her hot breath breathing into you, inflating you like a balloon, "I won't take too much. Just a little..."

Her eyes roll to the back of her head. A shiver of ecstasy running down her body, "Just... Just a little nibble. For mommy."

She bites down. Hard. Her reticulated teeth sink into your abdomen, you're back, your spine. Blood spurts from the wounds.

She groans, sucking on the rush of juices exploding into her mouth.

She does not stop with a nibble. Can not. It's not her fault, she would tell you if her mouth wasn't full. It's her reticulated teeth. They point backwards towards her throat. Towards that deep black abyss inside of her that lusts to be satiated but never can. A black hole whose gravity can not be escaped.

Yes, it's her teeth. They were made for pulling things in, not letting things go. They dig into your flesh. Over and over. They penetrate and pull you harder and harder inch by inch ass first into her gaping maw.

Her mouth is wet. And hot. She moans. Her lips are thick with wet milky saliva. They make wet smacking sounds as they suck on your body. Her barbed tongue laps and laps, like a lioness ripping and tearing the skin off her prey like sandpaper. Her tongue digs into you. Finding its way inside of you through the holes in your body and lapping at your insides. Rubbing your coarse intestines raw until they are smooth and your blood trickles and flows down her throat like melting chocolate.

She sucks and sucks and sucks on you until she sucks out all the insides, savoring every drop like a child savoring a popsicle. She sucks until your wings are crushed inside her mouth and your spine snaps in two and your legs lay useless and paralyzed around your ears.

And every inch of you she slides deeper inside of her comes with a new found level of agony as your body is crushed in half and her reticulated teeth find new footholds inside of your flesh with which to drag you deeper inside of her until just your face and your feet sticking out of her mouth.

She pauses. And for a moment, you think that maybe, just maybe she has had enough. That she has had her nibble and come to her senses and will now release whatever part of you is left uneaten.

Then her hands reach up and grab you by the face with her clumsy fingers, feeling around like a blind woman trying to remember the face of her lover, and then she forces the rest of you into her mouth. And as her jaws close and you slide down her slick, muskular gullet into the horrible darkness inside of her, you catch one last glimpse of daylight as she licks the blood and juices from her lips.

And you want to scream. To cry out. But you can not scream. You can not cry. You have no mouth. All you can do is bow. Bow before your Mother Milk in silence.

That is how Mother Milk takes you. Drip by drip, inch by inch, nibble by nibble, savoring every moment of your agony with rapt avarice.

She stuffs herself with you, greedily shoving you inside her till there's nothing left.

"Oh yes,” She says, “I give. I give so much.”

She lays back, exhausted, her belly swollen and pregnant with her prey, which kicks and convulses inside of her like an unborn baby as it is smothered and crushed and digested.

"I give and I give and I give."

This post was deeply inspiration by "Metamorphosis" by Weeping Iva. Click here to read.