The Face of Austerity

The baited bear must one day bite back
or else pull against the withering rope.
It will not snap out of politeness.

It has no pity.

You have hunger.

Night and morning watch as we dig
ourselves into precarious
graves, dry and cold
and ankle-deep with inches
of snow above,
and miles of Hell below.

What do you mean, you wouldn’t fall
to your death, trying to fly?
Is there any other way to live?

You are hungry.

We worship constants.

Hunger
has
you.

There, there. Hunger was the reason
you stopped crying after a while.

When you could afford to cry,
you — you, creature, could have saved
those tears up. Selfishness watered
the earth we dig with salt. Over-indulgence
fertilised your grave. We rifle through
those crystals now and taste our demise.

Hunger held you when nobody else did.
Hunger wrapped you in a fur coat
when your papery garments melted
off your bones like snow.
Hunger was your only friend.

I prey on empty promises,
they taste so sweet still, but don’t fill
stomachs. We used to pan for gold
in gutters and kitchen sinks.

We hatch out of grey frames, cold
as stone, and walk and walk and wake
up. My skin buzzes with life, with lightness.
I feel like I could fly.

My skin is innocent, pink, and see-through,
and I smile in a way nobody in this world
should be caught smiling.

Let there be hunger where we are no more.