Cracked bowl on splintered table

Last night the kitchen held its breath,

my stomach grumbled over the television’s hum.

Empty cupboards sighed with dust,

a cracked ceramic bowl stared back—

bare as the cold edges of my bones.

I reached for crumbs, found silence,

not hunger for food but the hollow ache

that clings beneath the ribs,

a twisting coil that no meal unties.

The light flickered low,

and I sat with nothing,

a hunger no spoon could fill,

waiting on an appetite I don’t name.