My First Philosopher Was Hunger

Before I read Descartes, I learned "I think, therefore I am"

translated differently: I eat, therefore I survive.

My first philosopher was hunger, persistent as a scam,

teaching me that needs are the only truths that stay alive.

Hunger taught epistemology at 3 a.m.—

how do we know what's real? Your stomach answers first.

Before metaphysics, before the abstract theorem,

there's the immediate, the physical, the thirst

that defines existence in the most basic terms:

the body knows what the mind tries to deny.

Hunger was my first, my most honest teacher,

showing me the line between living and the lie

that comfort tells. Hunger taught me ethics—

when you're starving, morality becomes a luxury.

The right and wrong of well-fed people

don't apply when your belly's in mutiny.

Hunger taught me economics before I knew the word:

scarcity creates value, need creates drive.

It taught me that abundance is a fiction,

that survival is the most alive

thing you can feel. Hunger taught me politics:

the powerful have food, the hungry have dreams.

It taught me that power is the ability

to fulfill or withhold the means

to existence. But most of all, hunger taught me art—

the art of the necessary, the beauty of the raw,

the poetry of an empty stomach,

the clarity that comes when you've hit

the bottom and realize there's nowhere lower

to go. Hunger was my first, my truest muse.

It stripped away everything non-essential,

showed me what I had to lose

and what I was without the extras.

Hunger taught me everything

before I read a single word.

The rest was just the dressing

on a truth I'd already heard.