November 19, 2019

the choices

You’ve spent too long agonizing over the menu. You've glanced, with equal parts 
envy and irritation, at your neighboring diners, appearing so at ease with their selection,
fingers loose around their forks, a look of unfiltered pleasure on their lips as they bend
into the fragrant steam of contentment. You've read through the choices so many times
the hunger that brought you here has drifted off the page, and the person you imagined
yourself to be—clear, capable, composed—has turned cautious and cowardly. 
My dear, you have to eat. You have to dig in somewhere, even if the hors d’oeuvre 
is spiked with uncertainty and the main course ribboned with regret. 
This meal could bewilder or dazzle or disappoint, but no amount of abstinence 
will ever feed you.