/ˈhəNGɡər/

noun 

             a black cat rubs against my shin and blinks up at me with wide, eager eyes the color of matcha and half as bitter. / Beckoning me toward her empty food bowl, tail twitching in expectation; this is her routine. / Pitiful mewls itch at my ears; she would starve without me, and it’s her right to keep me well aware of that plain truth. / Her cries don’t cease until I set the bowl before her, her nose dips down, and her whiskers disappear beneath fishy-smelling mush. / Watching her eat, I know a cat can want, so I wonder if they crave. / “What is desire to you, house pet?”

Similar:    disorder

verb 

             kneeling before an altar, wincing as a hand, withered and tough like jerky, grips cheeks and opens mouths. / Feeding flesh that disintegrates on the tongue and blood that stains the lips until bruised. / Gagging until spitting up teeth that cut the throat on their way out, but it’s fine because I never want to see them again anyway. / Never chewing and never swallowing but always yearning. / Pockets filled with milk squeeze until it trickles down into a screaming stomach. / A restless child squirming, squealing, pushing against a thin wall with soft, tiny fists. / The most diminutive creature with the loudest rage, starving in abundance, a gaping maw left wanting while still rejecting satisfaction. / Glasses filled just to be emptied as hair grows to fall, as cloth folds to wrinkle and crumble from the skin, gratifying the insects, strangers to abstinence. / Consummating consumption through scaling the scales with weighted breath; waiting for little numbers to define what is enough; quantity becomes quality, and lust is worth its weight in gold, gold the color of ambrosia, the food of the gods. / To a cat, I may be a god; I watch her beg for her daily bread, and I envy her: the simplicity of her longing, her appetite, how easily her demands are met, and how silly I must seem to her. / “What is hunger to you, human? Why don’t you just eat?” 

Similar:    girl