Starving Thoughts by Rickey Rivers, Jr.

I remember scrambling around the kitchen looking for food. There was food. I just didn’t know what I wanted. I had options, but couldn’t decide. I also didn’t want to cook anything. I was hungry, so I made a choice and settled on something. I considered how fortunate you must be to settle on anything, looking for food was not actually a problem. You don’t think about some things until you’re on the other side. Wanting and having differs from needing and not having. 

People say “I’m starving” when hungry, at the same time not really knowing what starving actually is. What’s in your kitchen at the moment? How many options do you have? Wouldn’t you fight to keep those options? Wouldn’t you fight to keep everything? 

All the swept up crumbs used to be food and together they could possibly feed another. Disgusting, yes, impossible even, yet these thoughts don’t live under a rug and a broom can’t possibly push aside all the ways we choose to divide. We abide and deride; stepping over a corpse when someone has died.