Starvation Learned

BY: MAGGIE MAURO

starvation 

learned when i shoved hyacinths down my throat 

and saw no gardens growing from my blood.  

shriveled blossoms clotted open wounds, flower husks  

streamed from fractured capillaries, i vomited salted earth instead. 

starvation 

learned when i cracked open my clavicles 

and expected wishes to fly out, only to find 

them hollow, pitted out like bird bones.  

futile, fevered, i pulled my skeleton apart in search of magic. 

starvation 

learned when i ate lies by the bowlful 

and still burned to know myself, to know everything and anything  

and all. i ripped my skin in two, bearing flesh, bare of answers, and  

had no thread to mend it, only the stitching pattern of hindsight and an empty-bellied future.