The Munch

There’s an insatiable hunger

chewing at the edges of society

I have deemed it, “The Munch”.

It’s out there, on the fringe,

Munching.

The Munch eats everything in its

path, never stopping, relentlessly

feeding on the joys, miseries and

the cavalcade of emotions we’re capable of.

Like locust’s jaws scissoring back and forth.

I can hear it in the soft echoes of night,

in the chants and screams of the righteous

and the unjust.

A crunching, munching, mashing, chewing,

sickly sound swallowing everything.

The Munch eats the will of the brave,

the courage of the weak, the minds of

the smart, the curiosity of the dim,

the backbone of the wise and the

moral fiber of the elected.

The Munch eradicates fields of

thought, of will, of empathy and

compassion. It chomps down into

the essence of humanity, taking

giant gaping chunks from us.

We hardly notice. The Munch is

actually quite small.

Microscopic. Infinitesimal.

Its work is done over long stretches

of time.

Munching in the dark,

Munching in the sunlight,

Munching in the fields,

munching in the cities,

Munching for millennia.   

Until one day,

all that’ll be left,

is The Munch.
And we’ll be the empty table settings

from the third course meal.