**Poetry: Hunger Games

 

This is not a survival game

of the fittest

And if you are starving

go help yourself to something 

from the kitchen.

We are not living in primitive times- 

though the hunger 

might keep you awake

tossing and turning

with insatiable need

yearning
for a certain comfort. 

Today I lie with my fist

open-closed 

pumping blood

from a vein

into a thin tube. 

Lives have been saved

this way, you know. 

And as the numbers rise,
the ICU’s have little to spare.

It’s just a response- if you care- 

not Perpetua’s cross. 

It’s what these

scraggly-bearded vets 

on long cots are here for, 

who must have known

the cost. 

So fine- serve me the blame- 

how I have taken your soul 

with too much thirsting for life. 

But life and breath are not games-

but gifts-

and if you follow the plot line long enough

you’ll learn what these old men already know: 

That it was never about fighting to the death

but only about sharing bread

to keep one another alive.