I was born into a famine
that had nothing to do with bread.
Love was rationed in screams or absence,
served in scraps too small to even fill a sparrow.
It folded children into masks,
teaching them to barter their bodies,
their brilliance,
for one spoonful of being seen.

Starvation is generational —
My grandparents wore silence
like a second skin,
their hunger pressed into my parents’ palms
who learned to mistake
approval for affection,
discipline for devotion.

By the time it reached us,
the scarcity became lineage:
my sister and I
daughters of starvation,
gnaw on shadows,
calling it comfort,
rehearsing the same ache —
our bodies learning
to beg in disguises.


Late twenties,
and the fridge hums louder than I do
bones hum with the ache of it,
eyes swollen from begging the air
to answer back.
I peel the silence open with my teeth.
There’s nothing inside.
I am tired of carrying
an empty bowl across centuries.


I will not pass down
a hollow mouth.
May my hands
unlearn famine.
Love will be abundant
in the soil I leave behind.

- V