My Hunger, Still and All, Remains

I am hard-pressed

to find words

adequate and intelligent

that can belie How

this came to be

Not able to provide

for myself,

me and mine,

to pull my weight

to maintain

let alone prosper

And I will stuff myself

indulge in treats

eat inappropriate items

and be willful against

your prying

    judging

        patronizing

        eyes

in line behind me

driving past the food bank

seeing me enter the food stamps office

I will edit my donations box

as I see fit

because it is my right

(one of the few I seem to have left)

and I will not

eat Vienna sausages or

sloppy joes

or clumped processed cheese

or...

 

I will go hungry first--

rest assured--

because standards and taste buds

have not yet been taken

and will not be relinquished...

I am still me,

and preference

is nearly all I can preserve...

it is how we persevere

My dignity is not an acceptable trade

for your pious charity

Yes, pride

is still part of my repertoire.

and there is no shame in that,

nor any apology due nor

forthcoming

 

I have yet to lose

or give away self-respect

no matter the circumstance

and still

my particularness

is not invitation

for you to judge me

Say what you will

when my back is turned,

but to my face

it is "How do, Mr. Mann, sir."

Your discards and

nearly-outdated, feel-good project

remnants

already clog my craw and innards

alongside

worry and

   humiliation and

       terror and

        yes, by lack-of-god,

    Resentments

How can it have come to this?

I who had so much

did so well

was held in such esteem?

Crashed and crushed

Heart-broken and abandoned

Mood-altered and weakened

Rolled over and

at this juncture,

older

yet not wiser...yet

They don't tell you

what can happen,

in time.

Nor teach you How

simply to Survive

nor prepare you

nor strengthen you;

but no complaints

since 'trial by fire'

is a masterful

performance inducer

I am hungry

(I hunger)

I am alone

(and deeply lonely)

I am discouraged

(I tire in my soul)

My world for the merest

of human contact

 

I have a void that needs filling

I cannot provide

I cannot spy

an end in sight

I worry for longevity

and plenitude

and endurance

What I want is not here

What my body needs is not here

Sustenance is barely here

and oh, what a lofty price was attached

I engage

  I engorge

   I feast

       to quell the ache

I have a void that needs filling

No more friendships

No more relations

No one tells you how

   much they take

All are the heroes

on their own stage

I have a void needs filling

This condition

life

which engulfs us all,

only in different manner

and course

I have a void needs filling

Always Two Sides...at the Least

Folks often tell me of late that I do not show signs of the man
they once know. These are well intentioned people who have
known me for decades, if not my entire life. There are fewer
and fewer of these particular kinds of friends and family around.

What they tend to actually say is something seemingly innocent
like "Where's that easy smile you used to sport?" or "You seem
so serious and dark...Lighten up!" and the message is clear.
They genuinely do have interest in my well being. They do perhaps
fear I have been swallowed by a new and less affable design which
threatens to engulf the old me.

Like grandparents bemoaning the loss of sweet little babies to
young hellions, and then again sweet young hellions' loss to abrupt
teenagers, and so on, it is the loss of innocence that we all seem
to miss. Perhaps because witnessing such transformations remind
us of the often dire and unrelenting nature of this world.

I sometimes grieve myself for the loss of  my innocence and naivete.

I sometimes sit in bed, unable to reach sleep while perplexed by
the burrowing questions, and I ache for simpler times.

I debate with my eldest friend the great hypothetical of whether
we would prefer to be ignorant and blissful, or if we are better
off for the supposed knowledge we command.

I try hard to recall the perfect, primal essence of true love, as
experienced oh so long ago for the very first time. For the years
have jaded me and sometimes I imagine I will never be able to
look past the reality of people (or the armored veil of my distrust)
in order to experience such unbounded--and unfounded--joy
and freedom in this lifetime.

So I allow my friends the openness to grieve my 'Little Boy Lost,'
for I know it is not a personal attack of what I have become.
Of what I had to become, in order to survive.

They are grieving their last vestiges of hoping someone could
maintain doe-eyed optimism. They are grieving their own simpler,
easier times, too. I know their sadness comes from a place of
having wanted more for me than this thing they wished would not
come. It is also quite likely a bittersweet acknowledgement of
the passage of time, and one of those disturbingly recurrent
reminders of our own mortality.

They say I don't smile as much as I used to, and I cannot deny
it is true.  My innocence is gone. But not my contentment, and
not my capacity to dream. Certainly not my compassion or my
wit or my humor.

I had to grow up, at least somewhat. Take a reality check,
assessing what was and was not realistic any longer. It was, to
put it deceptively mildly, a painful process. But I am not just
wounded...I'm grateful. I'm better.

For friends, who see only periodic splotches of the changes in
my darkened gaze and my strident poses, it is of course more
jarring. The change did not have the good taste to be witnessed
in steady, staccato regularity as the old was chipped away to
prepare for the new. It seems more blunt and abrasive for them.

Brutality was the only mans of dislodging the childlike credulity
I had too long maintained at the expense of hard lessons.

Sooner or later, we all lose a bit of our smile. If it helps at all,
I'm still smiling on the inside. I'm not done yet. And by the way....
Thanks for the concern! It does bring a smile to my face.

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