melissaahowells
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This is a true story
from beginning to end: I had a hot cookie a piping hot cookie but it was for somebody else... Along came a woman, literally covered in sores, begging for a bowl of cereal and milk. I gave her the cookie and she thanked me heartily. But, in honesty, I had first,turned my back on her, thinking, I had nothing to offer. I knew that one cookie wouldn't help her. But for that one moment, maybe, my acknowledging her need might. Hunger is a powerful enemy. Loneliness coupled with it makes it a more powerful one. Put them together in the same shaker and don't you have a great big barrel of fun. You got lots of trouble. and I've been there, way down. The problem is as I see it, we don't often wear each others shoes. Don't know what it feels like to be in them. Perhaps the problem is that we want not to be bothered or to have to look at or see people, but to blame or say that's the life they choose... yet we don't know the why's and how's of how it got to be that way. I've been hungry and I've been lonely. It can be a near-deadly combination. To survive you got to do things you wouldn't do... I've taken bean dip, Hostess pies and stuffed them deep into my hole-filled pockets. I've stalked apple trees and porches filled with refund-bottles. I've haunted dumpsters searching for pizza crusts and seconds tossed and anything that didn't look too bad. When you are hungry, you would be surprised what is and looks edible. Because I was had just moved in with my Dad and he had gone on a business trip and promised to return, I spent my whole college grant/scholarship on his bills thinking he'd come back... well, he didn't... and then my Mother (they were newly divorced) was so angry with me that she didn't care if I had any money to eat. Later on Dad sent his refund to deposit in the bank. Poor decision-making led me to deposit it into his account; therefore, I had no choice but to forge his signature to pay bills but soon realized I could only pay myself five dollars a day... after eating day old bread and condensed soup for 3 months solid, I discovered a succulent fruitcake sent by my Aunt wrapped in holiday foil nestled in the bottom of the barren refrigerator. This cake saved me just in time for college finals. So this story is part poem, part narration, all truth, no fabrication. I did what I had to do... hunger made me do it all. Should God help those who do not have enough to eat? No, we ought to. And in doing so, we offer them our friendship too. Remember that the next time you have a warm cookie. Copyright January 24, 2015 All Rights Are Reserved By This Author Straight from her Tilt-a-World Meloo/Melissa Howells Copyright All Poetry/Prose/Ideas/Rants are the legal property of this writer. Thank You for Reading Written Directly to the Page. Vote for this poem |
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