cook rice

add plenty
butter,
salt,
pepper

add cookies and cream
or any ice cream

mix it up

so i've been thinking
don't tell anybody
where we're going
and don't worry
about anything
baby that
challenger
deep
will eat
up the tsunamis like
ice cream sandwiches

The only time I've ever felt hunger
was when I fasted for 48 hours
in the 11th grade
just for attention
After I ate my first pop-****
I pooped so hard I got angry at God
I got angry at God
The boy blessed enough
to be a picky eater

In 19 years of being well fed
the hardest thing I've ever
had to swallow is my own pride

They say if you feed a man a fish
he will eat for a day
Well I've never caught a fish in my life
and half the time I'm too afraid
to order a pizza because I think
I'll mess it up

So tell me why when I go to restaurants
my taste buds feel entitled to slaves
Why do they whip servers into making
my meat medium well

My teeth have never tasted blood
My mouth doesn't know dry
I've never dreamt of food
because I don't know life without it
But at least once a week I get mad
that McDonald's doesn't deliver

I once watched a cow get slaughtered
and I didn't blink an eye
because I could already taste her in my mouth

In the same year my history class
raised money for nine months to buy one goat
to send to a village I've never heard of

The contrast is cruel

I can remember the last sound the cow made
but I can't remember the sounds that made
up the village's name
or its people

So I hope you'll understand that
when I utter the unfathomable phrase
"I'm starving"
all I can taste in my mouth is shame

I.
My best friend just texted asking
if Anne Frank was a real person or
just a character in a story.

I cannot help but laugh because
I know she is smarter than I am
and it's quite laughable that she would
ask such a question as if it were nothing.

Maybe she's having a blonde moment,
although her hair hasn't been blonde since
it started growing back a few years ago.

Chemo's a *****, yet all she does is smile.

II.
The boy who was almost mine looks at me
with kind eyes and a sweet smile and we laugh
like there was never any kind of awkward situation
between the two of us months ago.

He's probably got her on his mind and I've got
myself on mine for the first time in a while and everything
seems beautiful the way it used to be before it all.

And he covers my eyes with his hands and we laugh
and I am much too happy to miss the way things used to be
because I am much too content with how things are.

Moving on's a *****, and yet all we do is smile.

III.
The boy who wanted so badly to be mine walks
down the hallway holding hands with someone else
and they laugh and talk and smile, so happy to be together.

And I am happy for him, because I have no time or energy
to be jealous of something that was never mine to begin with.

He does not speak to me
and I do not care because I realize
that everything is beautiful today
and so am I, for once.

Because life's only a ***** if you are.

I've always had a thing against
people who come across as sappy
but that being said,
you make me the sappiest sap
in all the land,
where do you get off,
acting like that?
so **** cute,
pretty,
****,
beautiful
whichever word you prefer
they're all for you anyway,
you've never read them,
but they're yours
so I'll go on
being sappier than tree blood
and you'll go on
driving me nuts

I grew up in a village
Americans always seem to laugh
at the very idea of a village
how quaint?
but I did
it was five or ten years behind the times
and in the pub,
the huntsman,
the local
there is an old Marlboro
cigarette vending machine
with lights and menthols
and 27's and reds
and milds and ultra milds
and all the others
I'm too drunk to remember
I miss those machines
bells rung of a simpler time
I miss those machines

reflecting upon a cigarette
I discovered a small fact
the middle burns stronger
any ash comes from the edge
the same is true of people
we age,
wrinkle,
decay,
rot,
die,
but  we still burn incredibly bright
from our centers
don't let the fire
ever die