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| Image source: The Military Diet |
For breakfast I have a piece of toast with peanut butter.
My stomach grumbles 4 hours later.
For lunch I have crackers, cheese and an apple.
I drink one liter of water. I think, I might waste away
on this diet.
At dinner I have a portion of fish with two sides
of vegetables.
I cringe at the way the kitchen smells like someone passed gas
as the broccoli warms up.
I’m grumpy because I want a beer.
I’m grumpy because I want something more filling.
Three hours later as I lay in bed
My stomach begins making noises like an asteroid
has landed in the pit of it
and everything inside is on fire.
I think I’m dying.
I decide to eat whatever the fuck I want in the morning.
In the seconds while I dramaticize my hunger pains
6 people die.
The science of hunger is felt by 1 billion people.
I am not actually one of these people.
I’m sure one of these people lives in the same city as me.
I decide gluttony really is a sin.
More so than the popular sins in the news these days.
When I get up in the morning,
I do not eat whatever I want.
On my drive to work,
two grackles fight over left over something in the
middle of the road.
It is a fierce battle that nearly gets one of them hit by an
on-coming car.
My on-coming car.
I am hungry. My stomach turns.
I will not die fighting over food,
but I should concede to battle a hunger
larger than my small belly.
Small as a fist.
1 billion people won’t eat a fist full of food today.
Grackles fight over crumbs in the road.
6 people will die every minute because they have nothing to eat.
Our world is overflowing with tragedy…
but my largest tragedy
is I won’t get a beer today
I will not drink a beer today
I cannot drink a beer today
and I think I’m going to die.
Sarah Frances Moran is a stick-a-love-poem-in-your-back-pocket kind of poet. She thinks Chihuahuas should rule the world and prefers their company to people 90% of the time. Her work has most recently been published or is upcoming in Maudlin House, Blackheart Magazine, Red Fez and The Bitchin' Kitsch. She is Editor/Founder of Yellow Chair Review.
