In hunger

In my chest, there is a cavern whose mouth is wide and throat never ending. Every morning, it screams in hunger and, every night it bites at my ribs until I muster up the strength to fill it again. 

It isn’t a picky eater, swallowing everything I shove frantically at it without closing that maw. I think it's scared that if it chews, it'll miss the next thing I throw down. Nothing I give it is ever enough; food, love, drugs, sex. Everything is all the same to it. 

Lately, I’ve been feeding it every chance I can. Every responsibility I have, every choice I need to make, I ignore, all to fulfill its hunger. I’m spoiling it, I know, and now that it knows how much more I can give, I can’t go back. Or it'll ask for more than even I have. 

I live in eagerness for the moment when I have nothing else to feed it, because only in death will I know peace, far away from that wretched cavern. 

Although I am tempted by the thought of a quiet, painless night, I will continue to feed it until finally, my legs give out and I tumble straight into its awaiting mouth. It may control when I slumber, what I eat, what I feel, and what I do, but my unbecoming will be controlled by me. 

I will decide when it chews.