Nervosa

I.

An–, GREEK: without.

–Orexis, GREEK: appetite.

It’s true enough.

I lost my hunger for just about everything:

Love, fun, people.

I hungered only for hunger,

And hunger meant control.

I probably would have dragged

My unfed muscles

Across a mile of

Shattered willow pattern crockery,

Just to hit a calorie deficit.

And what do we see,

Depicted in said fragments?

A father’s consternation, blue.

A sister’s muted concern, white.

Friends smashed, morals smashed,

My feet blooded, a celery heart in each hand.

II.

Writing on the topic proves challenging.

Not emotionally — I’m a certified sharer —

But pragmatically.

My brain’s changed;

I find it hard now to pull on that old suit —

It’s a tight fit.

A Love Story

He was a baker,

She was gluten-free,

By all accounts

Their love

Was never meant to be.

Each day the baker

Felt keenly her lack;

Why, in God’s name,

Did he

Love a coeliac?

But then the baker,

Sick of being glum,

Baked a new bread

Of brown rice flour

And xanthan gum.

She bought the whole loaf,

Dispelling his woes,

And ate it unbuttered

(Being, as she was,

Averse to lactose).

But now the milkman,

Ostensibly coy,

Makes his own play,

Stocking,

I hear, ten pints of soy.

Peter

Peter was a funny boy

Who’d masticate raw cabbage;

He’d drop dry leaves into his mouth

And crunch them like a savage.

Peter was the kind of boy

For whom the age-old adage,

“Eat your greens and you’ll stay lean”,

Was stooped in excess baggage.

Peter was a quirky boy

Who made up his own language,

Codifying leafy greens

As pudding good enough to ravage.

Bad Eggs

Whisking up the northern line,

An egg in every seat;

I’d like to crack their stipples shells

To get at that white meat.

Whisking up the northern line,

An egg has cracked itself;

The kind of egg my mother has

Me put back on the shelf.

Whisking up the northern line,

One clucks into its phone;

This egg will make bad omelettes

And underglaze a scone.