Starvation Season

Sometimes you don't want to eat.

It’s looming

Like a sword over your head;

Or more accurately:

Like the hands of everyone you love

Coming down on you to crush your bones and splatter your blood;

It follows you everywhere

And the only way to veer from its noxiously warm touch

Is to be smaller.

You feel it on the back of your neck

The first time you put your hand on your leg and realize

There’s something dark and icy slithering up far enough

To touch a tendril to your chest.

That’s when starvation mode starts.

 

You fucked up.

No eating for a day.

 

Your body is angry with you

So it hurts you with strikes and bites

But you can take it because

It hurts less than the congratulations.

 

Nothing changed.

No eating for three days.

 

People who love you are worried.

“Don’t you see? I’m doing this for you.

If you don’t see that,

I only need to try harder.”

 

That wasn’t so bad.

Why start now?

 

You’re dragging yourself kicking and screaming

And you’re numb to everything but the burning

But it’s fine

Because you can’t remember a better happiness to ask for.

 

It’s alright.

I’m used to it.

 

Everyone and everything is begging you to eat

But the pleas are baseless,

Grating, and hollow.

They don’t know what they’re asking for.

 

I’ve come so far.

I can’t stop now.

 

And soon, there’s nothing left that wants to eat

Because that naked, writhing thing has withered

And died.

What’s left doesn’t have a hand to hold

Or a stomach to eat with.

 

Would I rather eat?

Or would I rather die?

 

That’s the equivocation.

 

That’s what gets you:

 

The moment that sneaks up on you from behind, grabs you

By the chin, and drags your bones into the ground

Leaving everything else behind you�"

The moment when it’s decided that you’re taking too long to make a choice

And that choice is made for you.