by Frances Wiedenhoeft

Hunger is my friend.the empty
hollo wness
of it

fueling
   a measured
      flow
        of adrenaline,

      s
      h
     ar
  pening
senses

so that I can hear
more acutely changes
  in the multitonal
      beat of my pa
           tient’s
           heart,

like the deep croaking of an old bullfrog,
rrrrbttt rrrrbtttt,

monitor the w-h-o-o-s-h, the sigh,
as I push air into the patient’s lungs,
hear the slightest wheeze or change in pressure

Hunger keeps me AWAKE,
fuels me
as bloody night
r
u
n
s
into bloody day
and
back to night

Hunger is my ally against the long s c r e a m of emotion,

hungerismy
p o
w
er

food becomes the enemy
in the battle for emotional obliteration

hunger becomes a habit.

After I left the bloody land and returned to the nation of bountiful
   meals food no longer made sense, platters and serving bowls
       laid out for my homecoming fluoresce under unnatural
          light, I don’t even remember what I like, I eat the
              plate offered to show gratitude and normalcy,
                I choke down a morsel and excuse myself

a
cube
of chicken here,
a bite
of pasta salad there,
signify my gradual reintegration

combat soldier
to restless civilian

but

I give you hunger
as frame
a of
reference

to understand my experience,

to know
my war

“My military specialty was 66F, nurse anesthetist, and my role was trauma resuscitation and anesthesia. I used withdrawal from food and rigorous hunger to blunt emotional pain and fuel a constant adrenaline surge to cope with my combat deployments. This poem is an attempt to communicate this to readers through imagery and language.” —Frances Wiedenhoeft

Frances Wiedenhoeft studied journalism and creative writing at Madison College, where she received a Journalism Certificate in 2015. Her work appears in The Wisconsin State Journal, the 2015 Ariel Anthology, a collaborative peace poem in Praxis Magazine Online, the American Journal of Nursing, the Spring 2020 issue of Deadly Writers Patrol, and The Adelaide Review Literary Magazine. She completed a residency at Write On Door County in March 2021. She is a writer, poet, mother, grandmother, and twenty-two-year Army veteran with service in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Desert Storm. She volunteers as a reader for Gemini Magazine.

Hunger Is My Friend

Elusive Enemy