Hunger

Content Warning: Disordered Eating

My belly aches

Turning over and over

Twisted in knots

Taut and barren

As my mind paces back and forth

To eat

Or not

One more game one more page one more prayer

In hopes that if I remain distracted

The hunger will stay away

This deep ache subsiding if only for

Four hours

Only to begin the rumbling and agony all over again

Thoughts of being filled

Stuffed to the brim

Content and satisfied

Belly extended and pants open

Are pushed aside

Making room for the dreams of mothers and fathers and doctors

To be the body they want you to have in order to be seen as worthy

I hear some people eat 1,200 calories a day

I don’t think I can count that high

Even if I wanted to

My eyes don’t stay open long and my knees buckle and my head pounds and my belly threatens

to rip itself open from the inside

Hunger

Doctors tell me we need to do something about this weight

Never asking me the last time I ate

I can’t remember

It’s hard to remember

Much beyond the number that apparently means I’m gonna die of heart disease and diabetes

and being Amerikkka's most hated

So many would rather die than be fat

Wailing their lives are over 'cause they’re fat

Bellies pinched in one hand asking

“Do I look fat?”

But you don’t look like me

You don’t know what it’s like to be fat

And hungry

Starving yourself in the hopes that

One less meal

One more squat

One less carb

One more sleep

Will make you forget the hole that goes on forever.

But I want to live

Food will help me live

I will no longer apologize for wanting life

To eat and enjoy it

To swallow and savor it

To taste and treasure it

Traveling from mouth to throat to belly

Broken down into the nutrients I need

So I can blossom and feed my own

This hunger is isolating

Infuriating

Nauseating

My emptiness is invisible because this belly and these breasts and this ass and these thighs don’t

look hungry

But I’m so cold

And hungry

And lonely

So as I make a wish

For all bellies to be full and caressed and rubbed and embraced and cherished and kissed and looked at longingly

The aching subsides, making room for my rounded flesh to stretch and grow.

•

Edited by: Ava Emilione and Rachel Goulston