once i start eating potatoes
roasted in olive oil
it can be hard to stop.
earlier i put on a pair of pants
and they were a little tighter
than i was comfortable with.
i thought silently
that i would be more
disciplined
with my intake of food.
so that then it might be that
sometime later
i will put on the same pair of pants
and they will feel better
on my body.
less tight in
the physical sense.
but then i roasted potatoes
in olive oil
to eat for lunch.
they tasted very good
and i enjoyed them
as i ate them
and once they were done
i began roaming the kitchen
and prodding the cupboards
for more food.
the house where i am
right now
staying,
the owners must not like peanut butter
as i have not been able to
find any.
i did however find a
jar of almond butter
that is nine tenths empty.
i like almond butter
though know it to be
significantly more expensive
than peanut butter
and am therefore
less inclined
to eat any.
i like food that costs a lot
and food that doesn’t.
were i a rich man i would likely
feel just as lonely
or just as vague
or just as immaterial
—despite the tight fitting pants—
as i do now.
were i a rich man i would likely
go to lots of different
physical places on the planet
and spend most of my time
looking for food,
eating, digesting
the food i’ve eaten,
wondering
how long it will be before
i can reasonably eat
again.
maybe this is a trait
linked to survival,
this obsession with food.
or maybe it is just
a tepid distraction,
a half-hearted shrugging of the shoulders.
somewhat like living life mostly
in the vaporwaves
of nostalgia;
when i was fourteen i was playing
junior varsity baseball
for the public high school i attended
in chicago.
the varsity team played after
the junior varsity and
we all had to travel as
a group
to the park where we
played our respective games.
my friend and i sat on bleachers
on the far side of the park,
waiting for the varsity to
finish their game.
this was the kind of
big public city park
that has four baseball fields
all in one large space,
without an outfield fence,
all four fields essentially sharing
one large outfield.
we were way out away from
the dugout where our
varsity team was playing
and my friend and i were
sitting there
in the small scatter of bleachers,
just a large aluminum contraption,
really,
free-standing,
with four or five long planks
on which to sit.
behind us the traffic of the city laid upon us.
behind us the sky was receding into dim.
behind us a man and woman had a
puppy on a leash
and were trying to get it to
obey their every command.
the puppy was easily distracted
and would yelp in exclamation and surprise,
when the person holding the leash
would yank it sharply,
trying to bring the puppy
back into focus.
i became angered by
the yelping dog,
thinking these humans
were hurting it, and
to my and my friend’s surprise
i turned around and yelled angrily,
with expletive,
at these adults.
they too seemed surprised
and then uncomfortable
and then shortly later
left the park with their dog.
this happened so long ago
at this point that i’m not even sure
it actually happened.
but i like to look for it
in cupboards
and at the bottom of jars,
when i am feeling myself
hungry,
when i am feeling
like i would like
to fill myself
with something.
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