When you feel that unpleasant emptiness
In your stomach
Take a food item
Need not be your favorite one
Watch it closely
Aren’t you amazed?
Don’t you feel the pull
Towards
Its physique
Color
Aroma
And ultimately
Towards its taste?
They do melt on the tongue
Oozing happiness
The taste buds, teeth, cells
Are nothing short of miracles
Are they not?
To some
Food is a marvel
Their eyes glued to the twinkling breadcrumbs
Strewn upon the sky
So distant and unreachable
They frantically search for those
In trash cans, dust, dreams……
To some
Food is a nightmare
For they want to shrink
Beyond recognition
A size-0 ethereal fashionista
They desire to morph into
Subsisting on crash diet
Some
Are food-stuff themselves
Cannon-fodders
They are born as ingredients
To be cooked by the Statesmen of their lands
And served on battlefields
Of foreign shores
This poem is an old one, written last year for a prompt now Posting for Poetry Pantry
sumanar/lekha 
A philosophical take on food – that we can go to a cupboard and find something to eat is too often taken for granted
Brilliant Sumana… missed you around here..hope you are well.
Powerful message brilliantly presented
The cannon-fodder hit me. Nice turn of content…bkm
A great contrast in the first two instances, and a powerful message in your closing stanza.
What a clever write! The cannon fodder stanza is riveting.
I like your respect to food and how thoughtfully and gratefully we must take it…
This seems an amazing poem!
Neat twists on thoughts about one of the most basic of human experiences.
Thanks for asking the questions. I’m going to think about this poem next time I eat!
To me this make me see the carnivore in any human eye…
Such a brilliant write, Sumana! The cannon fodder stanza is amazing!
now i’m hungry… very intriguing take
I LOVE this: “They are born as ingredients”
You’ve certainly got me thinking about food in a different light. The ending on this is powerful … impactful … and chilling. An important piece.
Several different ways to look at the food we eat, and what we become,
Elizabeth
a very unique one…food and so many perspectives!
Food is a nightmare
For they want to shrink
Beyond recognition
Food can be anything and everything to different folks, no doubt about it!
Hank
This piece speaks powerfully to me of who we are in the world and how it shapes our view of the people and things around us–