The Feast That Starves

We came with hollow bellies,
dragging our hunger like chains.
The hall welcomed us—
golden light, silver platters,
the scent of roasted promises
and candied lies.

We laughed with mouths full,
stuffed silence with sugar,
washed down our aches
with wine that never warmed.
The more we swallowed,
the more we vanished.

Behind the line,
They smiled—those masked ones—
ladling out despair
With jeweled hands.
We never saw their eyes.
We never asked their names.

Somewhere,
a register rang.
A gasp.
A scream.
The sound of debt
being collected in the flesh.

We looked away.
We always looked away.

And when he came—
The one with eyes like fire
and hands like bread—
We paused,
forks mid-air,
as if remembering
What it meant to feel.

He asked us
why we fed on emptiness.
Why did we pay for what
was never bread?

And in that silence,
we heard our hunger
for the first time.

Now I sit
with a single crumb
glowing in my palm,
and I know:
this is the feast
we were dying for
all along.