A Morning Without Fear

It's been years since
   whatever happened
         happened

and the dead
    got hungry

devouring anything
    that moved
        animals
           people

only ignoring the insects
     as they crawled through
      their rotting
        bodies

devouring the devourers
    as our loved ones
      fed on our brains

making us take cover
    learn to fight
       kill the dead

for so long
    the only sounds
      were the groans of
         the deceased

as they looked for food
   as they fell apart
      as the feasted
          and felt pleasure
               as their hunger abated

and there was the light crunching
   as millions of bugs
       ate along with them

eventually, the dead stopped
    rising

the bugs kept eating
    and we just hid
        and waited
           for equilibrium

and this morning
   for the first time
      I woke without fear
         listening to the
            birdsong

and as my stomach
    complained
       I wondered
          if
            brains really taste that
                good.

heidi
written 5/13/14
in response to Marina Sofia's dVerse Poetics prompt

I had to write two other poems to get to this one, which is the one that I wanted to write!