Starvation
Alms for the poor, alms for the poet.
I’m so hungry.
I have been for—
long, hard years.
The pain started when I was just a boy.
I didn’t even know what to call it then. Just that something was missing. It hadn’t always been.
I carry a small cache of memories from a time very early on when I was warm, happy and safe. Curled in the lap of that woman I will only and always know as ‘mother’.
But, as time went on, that space got hollowed out. I wasn’t the precious only one anymore, and as life grew more difficult for those who meant the most to me, it expanded to affect those they cared the most for. This is where my hunger started. And it grew and grew through that young boy’s life until, out of desperation, he began to look for something more.
One day, I found the bread that man needs. It came for free and as much as I could stand. I began to nibble here and there. It allowed survival.
Sometimes, even contentment. The hunger receded.
But the gnaw never left—I could always feel it lurking in the shadows.
Many times, a desperate rat, the blue eyes considered chewing a bit of tail, or a foot. Maybe just one claw.
NO!
Why IS man determined to starve before ever he is hungry?!
The days turned and in spite of the hunger, I leaned on the hope of rescue. Recovery from this despair.
Then—
I found it: the fig tree. It looked so promising.
I feasted for the first time in my life. Gorging on the plant’s lusciousness. And it was good.
But, in time, what appeared as fruit was illusion. The satisfaction of this source was replaced instead with the obligation of keeping the plant alive and healthy. The reciprocal always felt like less than it needed to be.
The hunger came again.
And it’s never left.
Now, at 5 decades and three turns, I’ve seen real satisfaction.
I passed by a garden filled with the luscious delights for which man was intended. Not all. The garden is incomplete. There are some dark places, and it’s certainly in want of care. But I can see now why my Lord cursed the misleading tree in his day.
What a heavy burden to mislead another.
But obligation is obligation. Who am I to question the ask?
Issacar-up and lean in.
Lean in.
Lean in.
Lean.
Lean.
Le—
—
In.
Alas, but for that spied cornucopia—I could keep nibbling at my tail. Sucking upon the blade of grass.
But I’ve seen, I’ve smelt. I’ve tasted. I’ve felt what a real garden offers. And can’t find my way back.
It takes all of me now not to indulge my desperation. My want.
My hunger.
All of me is pulled to it. Each cell, every neuron, the blank space between the matter of me wants it.
A starving man hardly knows he is hungry. Until they first taste. Then the craving, want, the need, consume him.
I do not know the answer. Death will be a sweet salvation. And how strange to envy the dead. How wrong.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
The time has come.
The time has come.
Time, to feast.
#essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #bin1 #bin2
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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