Foul Taste

The flavor of how far you have fallen 
is smoky and full, coating the cheeks, 
sticking to the lining of the throat. 

All you can eat turns into what you can stomach,
but you are so unwilling to starve 
that regardless of the rotten tang of it,

you belly up any time you are
the least bit hungry and take in
what you can stand. It is enough

to keep you some sort of alive without
offering any sort of true nourishment.
It’s a taste, a foul taste, but it’s all you have.