How should I Eat
by Amy Yang, Methodist Ladies’ Collage (MLC)
Finalist, Years 9 – 10, performance poetry
It fits onto you like a fishhook in your skin,
Catching ugly things from the fat in your seams.
It said “You, my dear, are a starving thing.
And we all know beauty isn’t free.”
Your toilet bowl still has frightening teeth.
It bites on your knees with wintriness sleet.
Your fingers, blunted from scraping the screen
It still hurts to have them down there
where they’re not meant to be.
It said “We all know acceptance isn’t free.”
and nothing has ever come from me.
A slippery slope covered in spree,
The hoar frost frozen with deceit.
Your love has reached its absolute;
Your friend’s pollution, a puling muse.
A gullet empty of platitudes, and food.
A house hollowed out, a body half-complete.
.
Is it fine to refuse the hand that feeds,
if you know the food is poison,
and the hand will be cruel?
If it eats you alive,
Consuming delight.
Want to read more poems? Explore the other Years 9 – 10 finalists.