Poetry Collection.

"Insoluble Hunger."

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The boy pretends to be numb and unfeeling.
His peers will think him melodramatic,
but when the sweltering heat of summer
and the glacial frosts of winter
have finally passed,
he will find himself in a stagnant air
and unsure of the blandness
tainting his own heart

like an oil spill.
Something vast and permeating—
a slick sludge that invades the molecules
to disrupt the atoms and
alter the chemistry.

Should he call it deficiency
or a total lack thereof?
He shall sit upon the creaking dock
with his feet gently kicking through the oily lake water
and wonder if there is a difference
between vast
and
empty.

Utterly vast is the astral plane,
the celestial sky,
with the men who walk on water
and the bears that guard their cubs.
And who better to look upon them
than the quaint little souls left to toil upon the ground,
their loneliness a palpable watchdog

in the leering shadows of the night?
They twinkle upon the shifting waters of the restless lake;
the lake with waves as reflective as crystalline glass
and as translucent as the solemn ghosts
that stalk their borders.

The boy will watch, in tender silence, the horizon shift into the gentle hues of rainbow.
If he blinks, he will miss it—
that pastel serenity,
that portrait of hope.
A promise for another day.

He will watch the tendrils of Nyx slink slowly across the water,
their unnerving fingers of sickly longing
seeking to wrap their glacial touch around his ankles.
And as the sun submits to the meager moon,
he will not be able to discern in darkness
the oil
from the
night.

Utterly empty is the paradise,
like stomachs that twist and fold in on themselves
purposefully starved of their salvation;
like the shriveled amygdala after a crash,
wax and feathers littered upon the rippling surface
of the coagulated lake.

There upon the mahogany table,
its lacquer a shiny, elegant finish,
the feast does, indeed, wait.
An impressive spread of salted fish
and only the finest of luxury cheeses,
so refined in their curated appeal,
so irresistible in their poised static.

With the steady turn of the wheel
and the rhythmic tick of the hands
they see the birth of a new and ugly conjoining.
Left out in the cold
they grow discolored and tart.
They lock eyes with hunger
and hunger turns away

time after time.
That predictable, dependable pain,
the melodious cry for mercy.
It is such a thick and black substance
that stifles the empty begging
simply because he tires of its sound
and has convinced himself of its malign.

If he stays there,
silent,
pliant,
he will be forced to concede to the impending ice
and thus relinquish his ignorance to the illusion of innocence.
The hologram will crumble around him like a shower of countless shooting stars;
the wolves will come come out to eat.

And, yes, his lack of response
is just enough
to tell us that they shall eat—

that they will eat,
his muscles will slacken,
his tendons will pull taut,
and he will not scream.

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(December 19th, 2023.)