For what I crave, there is no easy cure
No food to sate this emptiness inside
And yet -- how can I live when in my gut
This need cries out for satiation?
Can I put a name to it
So that I can capture its dark essence
Pin it like a butterfly to a board
Dissect it, claim it
See it in its glory and its foetid gleam
Oil-slick greasy and stinking of gin
And lesser scents of decay
Stare into its dead blind eyes
Their compound facets reflecting just my own
Hazel orbs
Distorted past knowing if I cry
Or if I merely have stayed awake too long
Or yet, to find the hidden merchant
Who sells an herb
Or rare vegetable
That in only one thin shaving can fill my heart
Who knows not only the hunger and its name
But the way to banish it forever
To the land of sorrow from whence it came
Who will brew me some potent tea
Reeking of tart citrus and exotic woods
Charge me something I can stand
Like a few hairs from my head
Or an old lover's scent
Something I can live without
 But like the woman who lived by the witch's garden
Who craved the tender parsley that grew only
Over the forbidding fence
Who smelled it
Dreamed of it
Let it haunt her waking and her stupor
As she lingered in the heat of the noontime sun
Her belly swelling with new life
Will I too demand that someone climb
And steal
And fetch for me the herbs
And will the witch come to me
Only after I've consumed the stuff
Hoping to fill the yawning hole
And demand a price too dear
Too high for what I won
But which I cannot deny
If the fault was mine
So must I bear the cost
But is this thing a separate entity
A gnawing animal inside of me
Seeking escape or just nourishment
Uncaring that to sate itself will kill the host
Will dig me hollow from within
Leave me empty and ravaged
With not a mark on my body
To show the damage is done
It is not a killing thing
This hunger
This craving
It shall not be my death
It shall not even cease my daily passage
Through sleeping and waking
Through work or rest
Through seeking sustenance of another kind
It shall not lay me low upon my bed
To sweat and slowly shrink into my sheets
It will not have such mercy upon me
If mercy is what I'd call that end
It shall not speak its name
Nor whisper of its needs
But shall instead accompany me in silence
Attack me in my most unguarded times
Refuse to leave my side like a most unwelcome guest
And eat me instead
As I seek to fill it up
Taking delicate nibbles of my comfort
And my pride
The gourmand feasting with restraint
Although I know
It will consume me entirely
But only
Oh so slow
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