The Color of Hunger

*To appease Amanda: A warning for those repulsed by bodily fluids, this entry mentions puke.

Brown. Brown with a hint of goldenrod. This is the color of hunger. This is the color the stomach feels as it aches for food. Brown and aching.

Some might call me racist for thinking this. They might say I'm implying that only people of color who live in third world countries experience the aching brown of hunger. They might say that I'm blind to what is going on in my own backyard. Perhaps I am blind. Perhaps I do not always see the truth before my eyes, but I am not ignorant. I am not ignorant of the fact that a lot of the kinds who got free lunches in my elementary school probably went to bed hungry on more than one occasion. I am not ignorant of local families who would rather buy drugs and twinkies rather than juice or carrots for their offspring. Looking back, I remember who those hungry kids were. There were indications which I was too young to pick up on at the time.

But back to the brown. In that English hospital, when I had nothing left in my system, my bile was brown and yellow. Not pretty to think about. But when you're hungry and your degestive system contains nothing but a little bile, it's brown. Brown hunger rests in the pit of the stomach.

I pray that I am not blind to the color of hunger.