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Her tongue was the first thing she sold.

It was bought by a man who kept it in a jar on the mantelpiece.

At night it sang to the empty room.

The next thing she sold was her lungs.

They went to a major pharmaceutical company,

who kept them breathing for a hundred years.

She sold her eyes, her teeth,

her left leg, followed by her right,

until she was nothing more than a finger,

wired up to a battery.

But she was happy,

and that was all that mattered.

***

Charlie Alcock is a writer living and working in Birmingham, England. He holds a Creative Writing MA from Lancaster University, which lives in a pile of papers on his desk. His work has previously appeared in Horned Things and Landing Zone. He writes reviews at atticusbooks.co.uk and can be found on Twitter at @CharlieAlcock