Peaches and milk, and
peaches and cream
are sometimes a desert,
but peaches in cans are the only fruit in my home.
I love blackberries,
I love the way
each little bubble pops in my mouths,
and then the whole berry
pops in my mouth.
It has texture.
I love eating blackberries,
peaches in syrup slide down my throat.

In church we pack
bags of food to give
to kids, and to give to families,
and we talk about how
fortunate we are to be provided for.
Nobody knows
I am one of those kids,
nobody needs to know.
In Minnesota 1 in 9 people struggle with hunger, the child poverty rate is 15%.
I am living in the high end,
I am living in a lie
of “I love that store, the new one at the mall is so nice”
when I’m only wearing this shirt because
it was $4 at plato’s closet and
I like the color green.
I am used to luxury, I live in the suburbs.
The high school by my house is
bigger than a shopping center,
but one day a girl said to me
“so like do you live in a townhouse instead of a house because
you’re poor or something?”
By poor she means
we can afford groceries
for all four of us at least once a week,
by poor she means my mom drives a car from
three years ago instead of one,
and I get a budget when I am shopping.
I wish I was my worlds poor.

My friends want to know
why we’re always eating macaroni when they come over.
I started counting and
they give us 5 boxes each time we go to the shelf
each week we are supposed to
survive on mac and cheese.
When i’m at my friends we order pizza,
we order $40 in pizza and
I can’t help but think
we could buy twice as many frozen pizzas
with the same amount.

For breakfast I ate peaches,
for lunch I ate an acronym,
something saying that
I don’t have to pay to fit in,
saying that I don’t have to
eat shelf granola bars at school,
for dinner I ate macaroni,
and that night
all of the yellow from the day
spilled out of me.
Yellow stopped being sunshine a long time ago,
my mother sent me to a therapist
until our state health care canceled it.
My mother told me
we can’t
afford for me to be sick.
Whats the point of eating
in the first place if
I’m trying to
decrease my stomach space?
We can’t afford for me to waste food like that.

When I stop eating all together
I turn a yellow, but
my father stops calling me sunshine
anyway.
I think to myself that its good
our electricity bills are payed
because
I can’t be anyones light anymore,
and I think to myself that this, that
starvation is much more sustainable
than emptying myself.
I hold myself at night until I fall
into dreams where yellow is happy again.
Dreams where I can buy back yellow,
where I can buy mangoes instead of
macaroni and canned peaches.
Where I can afford to feel this way.
Where I can afford to be sick.
Where I can afford to get better.