John Anderson Poet Lyric

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Food Noise Silenced by the Jab of Will

A chorus of cravings murmured beneath each breath.
A hunger-chatter humming me halfway to early death.
Like static in the wires, like tinnitus in the bone,
it called from every cupboard when I stood there alone.

“There’s cake in the kitchen,” came the relentless cry—
“Chocolate in the pantry—don’t ask yourself why not—just comply.”
You don’t want the carrots; you don’t want a leafy green—
you want the sweet white thunder, of sugar pristine.

I'm below my set-point horizon, where my body sounds an alarm,
my ears are ringing with its echoes, my hunger coaxing with its charm.
My metabolism slowed when I dieted, its tricks now on show,
so losing weight became like walking through fresh snow.

Then, suddenly the food noise was silenced—
the hunger's ringing went still.
No phantom bell in the skull to keep playing.
No cravings on the hill.
The mouth’s old echo faded,
as I took the jab, or powered up the will
to stand in an empty kitchen
the cake uncut, all there still.

It was a tinnitus of hunger, pitched high inside the mind.
A private shrill insistence, I could neither leave, nor unwind.
The appetite’s phantom ringing, loudest in the calm,
absence becoming resonance, desire becoming a sung psalm.

The body’s restless asking will not soften, nor be outdone.
It tugged me back to excess, like a planet to its sun.
Each diet was a ladder a slippery slope in the rain,
each rung greased with longing; each slip returned its gain.

For the body has its set point, its gravity, its law,
a weight it keeps returning to, with hunger in its maw.
And when I slip beneath it, some ancient siren knew,
it could tempt me back with sweetness, to collect its due.

Then, suddenly the food noise was silenced—
the hunger's ringing went still.
No phantom bell in the skull to keep playing.
No cravings on the hill.
The mouth’s old echo faded,
as I took the jab, or powered up the will.
To stand in an empty kitchen,
the cake uncut, all there still.

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