Beside your yellow
sunny side ups
and crisp browned strip of bacon
lies the center of all your problems.

The piece of what was white bread
that rests hopelessly on your glossy pale plate
is now stiff and dead instead
of soft and moldable
without a definite shape.

It is placed under pressure
in the heat of the machine
that forces it to be still and conform,
leaving the loaf blackened and burned
on the outside while it’s truest nature
remains inside unlearned.

Take me
out of this slotted oven
before I am branded
and marked
still and hard.

Don’t attach your stigmas
warm on my body
to remind me how I am
just a morning delicacy
that you can eat up.