The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Moon as Salted Lemon by Clayre Benzadón

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How to Complete a Meal / How to Make Myself Full (Whole)

Home-
made dinners every
night. The china

plates have been scraped
from so much use.
The dishwasher handle:

broken. My flank-rib-
striptease heart. The left-
overs, over-

flowing in the fridge,
I stuff myself (make
myself whole).

It’s the way I complete
myself with lies. I’m full
of shit. Recovery:

a fabrication (I swear, I would
have preferred drugs to food).

Every day elapses,
the facility’s window
a hidden sun visiting

my (vegetative) vegetable
body, a world-class
retreat.

*

Morning munch.
Lunch. After-
noon snack.

Dinner.
Timed.
Hunger

cues, judge-
ment, I meant
binge,

restrict,
it’s not to my
taste preference(s),

(I loved getting
to suck the flavor
out of my partner,

even if it drained
me to my ribbed-
hollow core:

please, people, I love people /
please! at least now I have
material for a hell-

healthful poem).

*

Fuck cyan-eggshell
Miami balconies. I’m as
livid as swaying palm trees

that end up staying
in one place for rest

of their survival.

Complete / (meals) /
failure to launch;
*gourmet plated*,

made whole, with
love: I’m sorry
for spilling

mess.

*

The chaos
was my own
making:

haphazardly throwing
food, rushing to sprinkle
refrigerated shreds

of chicken onto plate,
leaving the counter sloppy
with poultry-putrid confetti,

every day a celebration
at the dinner table
while I hopelessly

eye my parents,
then direct gaze
towards my plate:

(DAD: That’s all
you’re going to
eat? Gobble it up,

you’re skeletal, as thin
as a Holocaust survivor).
I was made

to believe
I’d been formed whole
and full and raven-

ous from food.
That was before.
I kept convincing myself

of a (false) narrative
of who I was, much
better version of a whole

rabbit, raw and boney,
displayed shamelessly,
without any more

dignity, or life left,
pink blob of creature
curled up on a tray.

*

The only after I could see
for miles was stained and
tainted flamingo pink, I was

lower on the food chain
than shrimp, filthy and

bottom-feeder-dependent
in behavior, sucking
up all selfless, sacred,

and satisfying spirits,
taking advantage
of my family’s repetitive

dedication to cooking,
cleaning, feeding
(after) me, only for me

to throw away / clear
the sustenance off
of my path. This path

is a past, my last meal
(the Last Supper) will
only exist,

only emerge
when it ends

up leaving
me (whole).

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