keeping score

I play with food
move a bite across my plate
bring it up
hesitating at my lips
and place it down again.
will they notice today
the mirage of eating?

I don’t notice the pangs, anymore,
slipping past them into
emptiness, fingers hollow, focused.

the mirror adds
my will subtracts
everything I am defined by
mathematical formulas
and the doctor’s scale.
with each division he congratulates
me as he keeps score.

they look at me and bite their lips
and place an encouraging hand
at my back.
“you have to eat something!” they say.
I shrug. “I’m not hungry.”

without the gnawing in my gut
I couldn’t see the universe
expand into everything
and reduce to a quark under
an electron microscope.
it molds me into a prism,
a being of focused light.
it reminds me I live.

food withdraws its sheen
the siren call, silent.

line count: 32