By GRACE ESCOE
I was born hungry
Yet I grew up in starvation
Always waiting for another bite
Always rationing what I needed to survive
Some nights I would wake up at 3am
From the pain of my empty stomach
Would try to swallow air
To fill the vacuum of my stomach
Eventually I began swallowing words
To trick my mind into another thought
Besides the reality of the lack
Still
My stomach would twist in knots
It would howl in retribution
It would demand to be filled
To be satisfied
The acid would start to eat away
At my insides
Formative parts of my young self
Just to dull the ache I gave in
I would feed it parts of my dreams
I would let the pain remind me
Every day of the importance of escape
I would let it drive me to swallow more words
I clung to every piece of paperback
Old wrinkled borrowed paper
That would give me a semi-footing
I would ration and sacrifice
Every thought
Want
Hope
To try and store it for the future
My tired hollow cheekbones pulled upward
And I would bare my teeth to strangers
Handing them a cone of indulgence
Five to eight hours most days
I would attend that school
Full of children
Complaining despite
Their well-rounded faces
As they unpacked
Opportunity after opportunity
Out of their lunch box
So when I finally grasped
The sliver of possibility
The ability to step into the world
I could only gawk at from the outside
When I was handed a silver spoon
Put it to my lips
As they told me to open wide
I swallowed without a second thought
The funny thing is
Most people do not tell you the dangers
Of excess
Of being too full
I grabbed handful after handful
Of hot sticky, dripping cronyism
Shoved fist after fist into my mouth
And struggled to swallow it down
As it clung to the sides of my emancipated throat
And for the first time
My gag reflex was hit
I felt the repulsion
I continued anyway
I grabbed a spoonful of everything possible in the buffet
Dish of opportunity after obligation
Trying to absorb every piece of security
Of hope
Of support
I could find
My stomach expanded rapidly
I was always so weighed down
By what was really too much
The fear of those hard
Twisting pains of hunger
Stuck with me
Etchings of past pain carved into my brain
Telling me to always take a bite
Before a grumble could even be on the horizon
That chronic fear
Looming
I chucked deeply at the irony in the statement
You are what you eat
And now I was halfway something
I always despised
And halfway never formed
Never had nutrients to grow
And I disliked that part all the same
Somehow instead of becoming full
By grabbing onto my dreams
They started to consume me
And I found myself
Yet again
A shrivelled version
That truly had never really left
So here I sit
In the paradox
Of letting things I gobble up
Devour me
Due the fear of scarcity
Of being hungry in starvation
Writer | Grace Escoe ’26 | gescoe26@amherst.edu
Editor | Annika Liss ’29 | aliss29@amherst.edu