This morning I sit at the kitchen table in front of my breakfast
in my stock-photo temporary apartment
and try to shed my shame.
But how do you break up with the feeling
that’s anchored your mind to your stomach
for twenty-two years?
I do not want to eat this food,
this soggy shredded wheat and overripe banana.
I want nothing to do with food at all.
I keep trying to file a divorce with food,
but the shame remains,
regardless of how tightly
I hold onto food, to nourishment to a chance
that one day I will wake up naked
without shame on my shoulder
whispering into my right ear,
“You are too much, you are too **** much.”
Today the whispers echo across the apartment
and circle back to me on a loop.
“You do not need food,”
I watch the milk soak into the soggy wheat squares
until they fill like balloons.
I wish they would float away from me
and take the shame with them.
But today I listen and obey,
I do not need food anyway.