metamorphosis

on food

It is a common misconception that starvation comes slowly--that someone does not realize they're hungry until they're too far famished to ever create space between their exterior and their rib cage--but, in fact, starvation is an overwhelming sensation of loss.  The most unimportant of situations can perhaps feel like the most overwhelming if one has not been fed properly.  They will not eat properly for weeks; each meal will be devoured seemingly with no regard for its actual taste (this is not true, however: each molecule of food will taste like drops of sweat rolling off of the fingers of everyone's beloved Jesus Christ) and they will never feel like they have enough nutrition to sustain them to the next day. 

It seems the most heartbreaking times in one's mind come from an obvious lack of sustenance of anything that should be considered a necessity.  Something given as easily as one breathes in air.  In fact, ironically, sometimes it can feel suffocating existing without feeling like any basic need that should be mindlessly fulfilled is met. 

Many may wonder: "Why is it that it is easy to be neglected whenever food is everywhere?"  Although it may not seem like food is easily found, the first man discovered that certain food was edible started by picking something up and eating it.  The food may be everywhere, but it is not everywhere for you.

Walking around town, the smell of freshly baked bread or oven-fired pizza may overwhelm the hungry man's senses.  People sit in coffee shops, laughing over a cup of coffee and a kind-of stale bagel that they probably paid a small fortune in terms of bagel-economics for.  "Maybe we should get lunch sometime... sit and chat, y'know?"  Food is the mediator for all modern relationships.

Enter you, a young youth, living in this dog-eat-dog-but-still-hungry-to-eat-another-dog world.  You had all the experiences, ranging from "let's stay in and cook meal prep for the next week" to "let's go get wings at a sports bar so that we can avoid her" to "cook or don't eat" to "eat but end up throwing it up later".  

Food shaped your life; you learned to cook through your mother and Food Network, then your dad showed you how to make spaghetti and ramen noodles (which became a staple diet for you when it was late enough in the night that the house remained silent to protect you), then you went to school and learned that anything was possible when you had a Tupperware container and enough anger to open a can with a knife.

You then learned that food wasn't always something you could agree with.  When the world was angry enough at your situation, and the quiet sobs through your mouth begged to be loud, you soon learned how suffocating it was to be hungry; not hungry for food, though, because that food meant nothing to you when you felt disgusting for eating it.  You knew it was not food hurting your feelings, but perhaps it was the food that needed to be savored.  You felt like you needed to be savored. 

You entered the world, back once again and looking for vengeance.  You soon found other people who were hungry and seeking validation like you sought out something to drink in the middle of the night.  Every one you knew seemed to need a fix of something: high schoolers your age asking a few token people to meet them in the bathroom to "make third period more tolerable", which you knew as the most obvious way to ask someone to smoke, as well as people who "just needed one more" of something.  Greed infiltrated your life as you saw behind the veiled curtain of "just needing one more" of anything and everything.  It threatened to consume you as you waded through the trenches of sex-crazed boys and nicotine addicts.

You claimed you were free.  Maybe you were.

Then you fell in love.

Oh, heart, stop pounding so rhythmically.

Suddenly, your rose-colored glasses were forced onto the bridge of your tiny little nose.  Instead of sleeping soundly through the night, you stayed up begging the temporary love of your life to stop ignoring you and reassure you that things were okay.  With every half-assed reassurance, your heart broke a little more.  Of course, in you nature, you never believed them.  If things were so fine, why was it such a challenging task to just put the phone down?  Your sweet little heart, simulating happy matrimony, insisted on leaving the call with them going overnight as if it would be the same as what you imagined having them breathing mindlessly into your neck as their digital arms wrapped around you as you slept. 

The sobs would come back, as the food you tasted never was savored quite like that specific shade of love was.  You would make yourself sick, and you'd fall asleep on the bathroom floor, no pair of arms to hold you as you puddled tears around you.  Suddenly, sweet little you was left alone.  Over, and over, until you learned that you had to stop suffocating yourself with your anguish.  You had to start savoring your food.

Withdrawing from the vivid shades of pink was hard after taking those glasses off.  You desperately tried to eat, hoping your consumption of food would satisfy the craving of being held or meaning something to someone who didn't have a legal obligation to love you, like your parents.  Five-star chef cuisine was as inconsequential as eating shredded cheese out of the bag.  You were alone, but you filled yourself so full with food that the bile you choked back almost didn't have enough room to fall to the bottom of your stomach where it belonged. 

It almost made sense in your head; if you were starving and feeling bad, maybe it would change if you were filled with food.  It wasn't ever about the food, was it? 

All those nights you spent alone, whether you had eaten 3 meals that day or none, were unilaterally caused by that suffocating feeling of being alone.  Your stomach did not growl whenever it needed to be fed but rather whenever your heart decided to split the pain with the rest of your body. 

You are starving.

No one will feed you.

Go forage your own food tonight.