top shelf dreams

Fumbling in the dark trying to

Invent some new recipe

Just don’t even know

What to add anymore

Electricity’s gone out

Candles are fading

And dinner time

Is almost here

                        

Across the hills

Float sounds of
beckoned children
calling back to home

My belly’s growling

My mouth is salivating

My want is yearning

And the pan is burning dry

Not another hungry night

Please, not another one

In the pantry on the top

Shelf in the dark

Lined up bottles of this

And that

Some of them are empty

And some of them are shot

I grab at anything

It would have to be

Better than

Nothing at all

Gotta try it out

Gotta put something

In the pan

Or I’ll starve to death, for sure

In the dark closet

Where I can no longer see

What is on that top shelf

The bottom line is that

Even poison seems

Like sustenance

In the middle of

All of this hungering

It would be better to starve

this slow cruel death than to

Sear my insides on your

Burning, empty, charred skillet

It seemed so good

As I reached into the dark

For something that

Might save me

You were there

On the top shelf

With your bottom line

Watching me sizzle and burn