Starvation

A famine kept as a diary. Six weeks since the family last ate, insides screaming at two, blood by three, the father in the oak tree by four, and the mother’s answer is to kneel, no blessings for those who do not deserve them. A child’s hymn bends into an accusation, Jesus loves me, this I know, sung over an empty table.

The house fails body by body, the sister’s sheets, the brother’s eyes, the dogs long quiet, and questioning God stays the one forbidden act. The end arrives as light, and she is the only one Jesus comes to take, which reads as mercy or as the famine’s final lie. The song lets both stand.