Butterfly Kisses

If I am to die, I would only regret not losing my sense of taste, then I wouldn’t have known the taste of poverty. If only I could’ve been a butterfly that survives on mud puddles, blood, or sweat. Instead, hunger ate me from the inside out, gnawing the walls of my stomach with a rusty knife. The only thing to quell this deranged hog, was a moldy bread from the garbage. With every bite, my throat fought the waves of vomit, and the salt of my tears never helped the taste. Rarely, I picked out half-chewed meat from the neighbor’s garbage, depending on their special occasion. If I wanted to snack, I’d look for some pickle crisps around the communal apartment, even on the bathroom floor.

But honestly, that’s not what poverty tastes like.

Poverty tastes like alcohol.

It’s when your older brother

comes home drunk,

after disappearing for a week,

and not knowing who you are.

After he finally recognizes your yelling,

he gives you a sloppy hug,

slurring words that reek of Yorsh.

After you beg for him to get a job,

his money scatters in the bars

where he sponsors his favorite whores.

And when you’re forced to take care of him,

he throws up in a dirty toilet,

in a bathroom without ventilation.

Poverty also tastes like blood.

It’s when you throw up rotten food

so hard and so often,

blood surges from the empty carcass

that is your stomach.

When you get beaten half to death

by a loan shark looking for your brother,

and you have no choice

but to accept the blows to protect him.

It’s when you drag a glass shard

across your entire body,

leaving silk ribbons sewed onto your skin,

to feel a different kind of pain.

But instead

You feel relief

So much so, that when your eyes close for the last time, you don’t feel the glass shard, but instead, you feel

Butterflies kissing your skin