Unhungry

you used to say / you’d rather throw it up / than throw it out / but look at you now
you really went / & let yourself go / away / little by little / pound by pound / inch by inch / day by day
your beaten heart walked out the door / & your appetite went with it / only leftovers left / was your
stomach / sick / secret / you unraveled fist / o you withering samson / folks said you looked good / good / good for him
i know it’s too hard to eat now / you haven’t got the stomach / too weak to speak / or go / so listen
sugar for the pill / sugar boy / i’ll feed you two lies / the lord is in my mouth & heart / it’s gonna be okay

Josh Shepard is the author of CUTTING PROMOS: Pro Wrestling Erasure Poems (BRUISER Magazine 2024) and Inside Voice: Poems Overheard (Ghost City Press 2022). He lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he works for the public library. He tweets about pro wrestling and poetry @JoshShepard.