Bellyache
A spiritual successor to the poem “I have become a soup of myself.”
i am so hungry empty
i devour poetry books ____i want to be filled with other’s words
(so i don’t hear the ones i have)
i binge-purge cycle books, i suck down some sonnets in an afternoon
and fast my way through the rest of the week.
i am spoiled by words ____they are too gentle ____my comfort foods
but now all im full of is a meal made from borrowed cups of sugar,
an egg from my neighbor except i hopped the fence of their gated community their house is built of publications and i ask for an egg
am i the eater or the oven? am i the meal?
am i making something inside for myself or am i eating anything green and calling it a vegetable?
i know more songs in their entirety than recipes
i want to turn my empty hungry into a meal but you can’t make something from nothing and reading is lonely
and cooking is friendly. make a meal for your neighbor with his eggs and ding dong ditch it on the step
please take it i made it for you.
jokes on them i left an empty dish, china i stole from my grandma’s collection
the fancy stuff we only use every other thanksgiving
that’s a history of stealing too. but.
hear my lines like tea i pour in your ear ____i can make tea without a recipe
a family recipe for me is reading the side of a box
putting two starches in a pot with canned meat it sure tastes good though
and always too much salt ___and garlic ___and garlic salt
i cook my onions good though because i’ve had omelets with raw onions, a true divorced dad meal.
you ever eat something just to chew? move your eyes across a page to say you read it? does it count as reading if it doesn’t digest?
i eat to fuel myself and read to fuel myself and it just passes through and i can’t unfeel the hungry empty.
