hungry scene

Consider Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as you approach today's prompt. We spend most of our time eating, drinking, sleeping, etc., but often we forget to include these seemingly mundane activities into our writing. When these needs are not met, we can't achieve all of the lofty things to which our great minds aspire. Go back into a piece you've been working on, and re-see it to include some bodily functions. Or create a new scene that centers on a meal or the absence of a meal. What does hunger feel like? Or cleanliness? Thirst?



No one else diagnosed it trauma, but you knew from its numbness - the ice water shock state that left you inert in the sterile twin bed. You forgot hunger, desire, love - all eclipsed by fear - is he here?

“You know, they won’t let you out unless you eat something.”

Well I didn’t know. Treatment happens at and around you, never with or through. Livid, lose the long days layed out in unrest. Someone reminds you to bathe, offers soft fresh cotton and yes standing under water brought you back to yourself, a bit. (Though admit it, you loved hairy pit stink skulking to the wall installed phone to take a call from Mama and swinging filthy feet at phantoms in the night.)

The meds you fought kicked in finally and swung you back to yourself so hard, you whiplashed out the other side as someone you’d never met - someone brave and wanting. Meanwhile, the nutritionist prescribed Vitamin D and Ensure and you’re so full of chocolate corn syrup you don’t even mind not sleeping. The halls and machines take shape out of what was permanent fuzz, a bleary blindness layered over living that serves to separate You from your present state, a fog that thickened over years, protection from violence that wouldn’t go away. And you too stayed.

Now knee jerk restless nights and you can’t stop looking toward the window, just in case. What if…? The door opens every fifteen minutes and they’ll mark on your chart that you’re asleep unless you wave. Hunger claws up with visions of a stage, the sharp cramp reminds you it’s hard to be brave.