I don't have a title for this one.

[azurelunatic]

Someone was talking about eating, and actions vs. inactions in the paradigm of DBT, and disability, and the labor of meal preparation. (Feel free to raise a hand in the comments if you'd like.)

And that got me thinking about some of my late mornings.
Note that this poem is about both preparing food, and about not eating. This is a working draft, and I might whack it around some more, but the words starting tugging on me while I was heading across the room to do something else.



Sometimes from the place of hunger
instead of standing I sit
instead of walking I lie
instead of gathering the bounty
of the market
of the garden
of the kitchen
of the icebox
of the warm flat table
instead of stacking or rolling or pouring or beating or heating or measuring or jarring, unjarring, slicing, stirring, folding, sorting, spreading, shaking, spraying, lifting, ,,,
,,,
,
preparing
the meal that wants to go inside my little hot stomach
there I am
there I still am
there is the old paint on my wall
there is the old pain somewhere inside
there is another sip,
one or two of the eight ounces
of the eight glasses
of the eight endless days

But the bed is still warm
My feet are still warm
Tiny chemical scissors to snip chains
ninety-seven
ninety-eight
almost ninety-nine and hovering
numbers from the old human-based yardstick of how we measure warmth
liberate me the sweetness in my blood to remain another minute
another nine minutes
before the bells summon me again
again
again
to begin the laborious rites
re-staff the temple
stoke the fires
and by acting
submit myself at the starting line
there to run once more
the human race.

Comments

[kore]

Oh, I like this a lot.

[hashiveinu]

This is lovely. I really like how you invoke the facts of human metabolism as the marvels they are, and the repetition of the language and the use of the numbers.

[vass]

Closing tabs and remembering again that I haven't responded to this. I love it.