the starving child with filthy hands reaches quietly towards me for anything i can give knowing from experience that cries will fall on deaf ears
i turn my face away refusing to feed the pathetic creature because i want some semblance of superiority over something for once in my life
because when i was starving not for food, but for something far more filling i too was left wanting and i need someone to feel that desperation too
because i want that child to learn as i did that the world is a cruel place and that you need to learn how to feed yourself or perish in slow starvation
because when you give away all that you have leaving nothing for yourself to gnaw upon you are no better than the starving masses you serve and death is far better than what you deserve