I’ve been starving ever since Dad died. I’m sorry, Mom. I can’t take it anymore. All that food you’ve made was wonderful, but nothing you could cook would help me. I’ve been trying for months now, even eaten some things I’m ashamed of, but nothing’s worked.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. With everything that’s happened, I didn’t want to burden you anymore than you already were. The funeral alone was tough enough.  I don’t think there’s anything you could have done anyways. 

Maybe that was also because, at first, I thought it was because of you. Everything was the same after Dad died. Too much so, actually. We sat around the same table, ate the same food, and went about our days like nothing had happened. The only difference was you. You made all of Dad’s recipes, but they could never be the same. It didn’t matter what you cooked, I still went to bed hungry. 

I ate everything in the fridge a hundred times over and when I wasn’t home, I emptied store shelves left and right.. People thought I was building a doomsday bunker with all the food I took. You never noticed because there was never any left by the time I got home. Yet if anything, I think I lost weight. My bones protruded through my skin almost to the breaking point and carved these long canyons of gaunt skin across me. I was surprised I could even stand most days, rattled my bones like trees in a typhoon as my insides cannibalized themselves. You can’t imagine what that’s like, to feel your body swallowing itself and yet through the pain of its bites, think only of wanting more.

Last week was the worst. Do you remember when I came home late on Friday? It wasn’t because I was with some friends. I was on my way back when I saw a dead raccoon lying in the road. Something else must have been picking at it because its guts were strewed across the asphalt. Tire tracks were burned all over it and it smelled exactly how you think roadkill would but worse. Yet in the moment, with my stomach grumbling like it had for days past, nothing could compare to that corpse. 

It wasn’t the only one. Birds, rats, I even ate some dogs if I found them in a ditch somewhere. I still don’t know why. They didn’t help me and tasted terrible, but I just kept eating for eating’s sake. With every bite I thought, this’ll be the one that fixes everything. It had to be. Otherwise I was some stupid kid eating roadkill off the pavement. I didn’t even get sick. Only hungrier. 

It wasn’t until today that things finally got better, but you won’t like why. I know I don’t. I was out with Kyle from school, working on a class project. He’d cut himself the night before and had this bloody bandage wrapped around his hand. I knew before I’d even seen him. Out of all things, the potent smell of his blood singed my nostrils. The whole time, I was captivated by that mark on his hand in a way I hadn’t been for months. I knew something was different and it had something to do with him.

It wasn’t a dog that attacked him, Mom. I don’t think Kyle could tell the difference in the dark. I almost didn’t do it, but when we were going our separate ways, I thought about going home and you. I thought about how good you might taste. I don’t even know what happened exactly. It was dark, I had a knife and then I was running with bits of his hand hanging out of my mouth.

I’m not hungry anymore, Mom. 

I’m so sorry. If there was any other way, I would take it. But I can’t keep starving. I just can’t. I know what I’m going to do. I’ll go back to my friend's house first. I know he works, so I’ll try him before I go find others. Then I’m going to leave town, somewhere no one knows my face. It’ll be easier that way. Don’t worry. I finally found something to fill this pit in my gut. I’m going to be happy again. 

I didn’t want to leave you with nothing, however. I just want to tell you everything before you hear it from the police. You deserve that much. Whoever or whatever I am anymore, I hope you can still call me your child. I love you more than you’ll ever know and will always be thinking of you.

Love, 

Alex