Hunger

It's back. Again. This sinking feeling in my guts. A pit in my stomach, rumbling and turning around like an old rickety washing machine at the laundrymat on the corner. I don't know how to quench it. I devour things, endlessly, and they just aren't enough to satisfy it. The beast that dwells in there is neverending. I feel like a dog chasing my tail; it's just out of my reach, but I am obsessed with catching it, no matter how daunting the task. I NEED to catch it. End it. Suppress it. Cover it with silk and satin and cool it with lace and iron. Put a mask on it and pretend it's something else. Something needs to be done. This hunger is a compulsion that I cannot escape. It beckons me and controls me as though I were a marionette. Its plump, wrinkled appendages are disgusting and vulgar. I can feel them touching and pulling and pushing me down. Caving in only to be stuffed, fruitlessly once more. This cycle, this routine, is exhausting. But it's there forever. I need filler. Bulk. Swaths and ribbons and chunks of something, anything to make it stop. If only for a moment I could quiet it so I could think. I can't hear anything when there is this constant rumble in my ears. This throbbing behind my eyeballs from the strain of it all. It's too much. I must feed it again. I have no choice. If I don't feed it it will torture me, endlessly, all night long. Begging and pleading with me to give it anything within arms reach. This black hole inside of me. This pit. This cave. This canyon with no bottom and no top. This infinite starvation that never ceases. No answer is enough, it just yearns and yearns and yearns. One day I shall find the cure. I will find a stopper made of humble cork or delicate glass that will be just the right fit, and for once I could shut this damnable monster up. I could tune it out so that I may focus. I could catch it with my toothy jowls and not let go once I do. Cure it. Soothe it. Distinguish it forever. But till then I search, running in circles, chomping at it. Breathlessly. Impatiently. Listlessly. Desperately...