Butterknot (Mother's Milk) Poem by Welandu

you stole the song from my heart;
but before that,
you stole the food right out
of my mouth

a failure to thrive;
you stole the love i saw
right out
from under my nose

you sour everything you touch;
the scraps i could shove
down my greedy, sticky throat
were already riddled with decay

is it any wonder
that i fear food
with the same vigor that
a dying man,
accepted his fate,
must fear the weight of living?

a bad, terrible creature
is the violent child,
the child who wishes to kill,
the child who wishes
to rend flesh from bone
with gnashing teeth;

what character should we ascribe, then,
to the man who made it?