‘They began to seek dishes not to remove but to stimulate the appetite.’ – Seneca, Letters, 95.15

She wears a dress that barely fits
and wishes she had bigger tits:
young Bella, on her stilted heels,
staggering through taxi peals,
a bruise across her upper arm,
and rapidly receding charm.
She used to think she had the lot—
three boyfriends back, he called her ‘hot’.
The last guy, not a gentle bloke,
still cried and kissed her when he woke,
until the final fag-end scar.
Since that, her stock has fallen far.
Sweet Bella didn’t start this way
but, loyal Cosmo protégé,
she’s never spat, or cried “enough!”
when challenged to a game of love
since passion entered, rather quick,
when he was drunk and she’d been sick
one party in Year Ten: they met,
they danced, he introduced regret.
Fair Bella, like a decent sport,
just blamed her skill—and practice sought.
The First Eleven helped her score;
Her eyes looked older than before.
They came, and then she let them go:
Jake, Rich, Chris, Kev, Mick, Dan, Dave, Joe.
She knew that love is made in bed
(or by the bins when giving head),
and if her lovers leapt the gate
their love must still accumulate.
She should have known, had our thought let her,
how longing is its own begetter:
her nightly rides could touch the moon,
yet after glow life’s still jejune
for Bella, pumped the way she likes
and on the rack with all the bikes.
And on a wheel in Hell, the street
rolls downward as we lift our feet,
as each new circular diversion
dropped Bella to a worse recursion.
The girl who made the fittest ache
ends on all fours, in Pleasure’s wake.

Just now, she’s got so drunk she’s fresh,
on stilted heels, with propped-up flesh,
but Hollywood beneath the skirt
can’t tear her free of all the dirt.
The man who’s handing her a light
thinks she looks filthy—and he’s right.
His T-shirt says ‘Mad Dog’; head shorn,
nose smashed… but it’s too late to warn.
His fatal lines, so crudely spun,
are pulling poor Miss Overdone,
manblinded from cheap, sticky booze,
enrapt by spiderweb tattoos.
Grabbing one arm, she hails the taxi
and lets the other squeeze her jacksie.
They squeal away—Christ, what a life!—
his fingers on the sharpened knife.
The widow in the lower flat
hears Bella home and strokes her cat,
astonished by the change in habits
from pets and pots to plastic rabbits.
Her courtship short, her marriage long,
she never got to do things wrong.
In Mrs White’s restricted day
it’s tea and buns, not anal play.
She sighs, and scoffs another cake,
and contemplates her inner ache.
Through sentimental ignorance
all folly builds its preference,
and those who keep their sexual diet
will often wink at those who riot.
Alas, this lonely granny, dreaming,
so misinterprets Bella’s screaming.
Her legs turned up a mile apart.
He kept both eyes and half her heart
as some dark prize. The rest they burned,
in flames that someone surely earned.
The upright press with hungry grief
tell Bella’s tale without relief
this week, and sigh, ‘She got her due,
to live as we advised her to’.
O subtle minds in subtle halls
that never care how real life falls,
who wrote, ‘Desire must free the soul,’
and loosed a beast that ate her whole,
down on your knees! Since Bella found
how evil springs when given ground.
For he who kills, a hempen halter,
yet Hell hunt those who build the altar.