Interstice: The Food Not Eaten (Apologies to Robert Frost)

By j -
To Eat or Not to Eat
The author mulling her options
_____________________________

Two foods beckoned at the grocery store,
And sorry I could not ingest both
And be one dieter, long I swore
And stared down one, desiring it more;
Would I not yearn for deep-fried dough?

Then ate the tuna, offering much less taste,
But offering perhaps a happier place –
For a waist is too precious a place to waste;
Passing by the desired one I have embraced
Telling myself, “Hell, they taste about the same,”

And on that day I felt both happy and sad,
In the snack aisle, no step had trodden back.
Still I took the first for another day!
Yet knowing the price my belly would pay,
I would return some day for another snack.

I shall be mourning this, devouring a pie,
Somewhere ages and ages from now.
Two foods beckoned in a store, and I—
I ate the one less dangerous, by and by,

For just today I have prevailed – somehow.



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